The Others
by HeyAssButtImBatman
Summary: Eren Jaeger and his boyfriends, Jean Kirschtein and Levi Ackerman, have just moved into a small apartment complex in the middle of nowhere. Eren is dissatisfied with the crazy neighbors and his homesickness for California, but all of that changes when he discovers the little door behind the wallpaper and the two button-eyed figures who live behind it. An EreRiJean Coraline AU
1. Chapter 1

**"She looked a little like Coraline's mother. Only…**

 **Only her skin was white as paper.**

 **Only she was taller and thinner.**

 **Only her fingernails were too long, and they never stopped moving, and her dark red fingernails were curved and sharp.**

" **Coraline?" the woman said. "Is that you?"**

 **And then she turned around. Her eyes were big black buttons."**

— **Neil Gaiman,** _ **Coraline**_

When Eren finds the door, it's truly an accident. Usually it's not, and he only says that as an excuse, but he really, honestly means it this time. Well, finding the door is an accident, and he definitely doesn't mean what happens afterwards, but going through the door, again and again and again, that wasn't an accident. It's something he'll regret for the rest of his life.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. If you really want to know the whole story, we need to go back, way back, to before there were accidents and doors and regrets.

It starts on the old, dead lawn of an old, dead house.

* * *

It's called the Hunter's House, and it's the ugliest thing Eren Jaeger has ever seen. The exterior is the very paragon of dreary, all fading, peeling green paint and lifeless grey-brown grass. The porch stairs creak as the movers stomp up and down them, lugging Levi's favorite armchair and Jean's big desk and Eren's prized bookshelf into the apartment.

Well, he says apartment.

The house used to be very large. It was owned by some rich man who raised his family out here, until an accident forced him to move closer to town. The house was split into three apartments: one in the attic, one in the cellar, and one—the one where Eren now lives, actually—in the main portion of the house. The man's son still owns the house, but never sets foot in it lest he be reminded of the tragedy that took place in his youth.

Or so the story goes. It's all very romantic. It would make a good book.

Too bad Eren has writer's block.

The house is set in exactly the location that he normally wishes he could go to. Sparse, scraggly forests surround the area, thickening as they crawl up the side of the lone mountain in the distance. The air is chilly, colder than he's used to, though not cold enough for anything heavier than a light coat and maybe a pair of gloves. Not that he owns gloves.

Jean owns gloves. They're made of black leather and lined with soft white cotton, and he's not doing anything except stand there with his arms crossed, fingers tapping against his bicep, but Eren feels as though he's being mocked.

Jean catches him staring and takes out one of his earbuds.

"Where's Levi?" he asks. Eren shrugs.

"Probably supervising the movers," he says. "Do you want to go explore?"

"Explore what?" Jean asks.

"There has to be _some_ thing out there," Eren says. "In a house this old, there are bound to be secrets."

"You're crazy," Jean says, but he follows Eren into the woods anyway.

They find a path around the back of the house, set with uneven cobblestones and barely worn down at all. The stones are difficult to walk on, so the two forge their own path through the underbrush. Dead leaves and grass and plants crackle and rustle and hiss under their feet as they're stepped on, a rather novel sound that neither is used to. Back in California, there were rarely dead leaves, even in the winter.

They walk so far and for so long that Jean takes off his gloves and unbuttons his coat, and Eren pulls his jacket off and ties it around his waist. Eventually, they reach a clearing. Eren hops up onto a tree stump and looks back from where they came. The Hunter's House looks small from all the way over here. He didn't realize they had walked so far.

Jean takes his other earbud out and shoves it into his pocket with his phone. He looks around, and pokes at a strange circle of mushrooms he finds in the center of the clearing.

"Eren," he says. "I think there's something here."

"I told you we'd find something," Eren says, joining him. He finds a large branch and pokes at the mud in the center of the circle. It gives slightly, and a muffled sound bounces back at them, like the echo when you knock on a hollow pumpkin.

"What is it?" Jean asks. On the other side of the clearing, something crashes through the trees and falls onto its face. Jean and Eren exchange looks and go to investigate.

The something turns out to be a boy, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, with chin-length blond hair and wide blue eyes. He lets out an embarrassed laugh when they help him to his feet.

"Thanks," he says, brushing dirt off of his palms. "I always get stuck in the same thicket of bushes when I come out here."

"Why don't you stop coming out here, then?" Jean asks. Eren elbows him lightly in the side, because while he and Levi are immune to Jean's blunt curiosity, most other people aren't. Luckily, the boy appears to be one of the few who is.

"There's always something interesting growing back there," he says. "I like studying plants." Then he shakes his head. "Sorry, I'm being rude. I'm Armin. Armin Arlert."

"Jean Kirschtein, and this idiot is Eren Jaeger," Jean says.

"Hang on," Eren interrupts. "Why does your name sound so familiar?"

"Well, if you live at the Hunter's House you've probably heard it before. My grandfather owns the house," he says. Eren blinks at him.

" _You're_ the grandson? But how old are you?" he asks. Jean elbows him in the side with obvious vindictive pleasure.

"I'm twenty-one," Armin says. "I know I look younger, though."

Jean looks startled. "You're older than me? Dude, I thought you were twelve!"

Armin laughs a bit, though his cheeks flush with embarrassment. "Yeah, I know. At least I probably won't go bald when I get old."

He reaches up to tie his hair back into a messy ponytail. He eyes the branch in Eren's hand.

"You know that's poison oak, right?"

Eren throws the branch at Jean.

"Am I going to die?" Eren squeaks. Jean laughs at him, the bastard. Even Armin cracks a smile.

"I doubt it," he says. "Just put some aloe on it or something. It should clear up before too long."

"Nice," Eren says disgustedly. He glares at his own palm and imagines that he can already see his skin blistering up and turning red. Jean pauses mid-chuckle and pulls out his phone.

"Levi's looking for us," he says, tapping at the screen. "Says the movers are gone and to get our asses down there so we can help him haul boxes and shit."

"Is that a direct quote?" Eren asks.

"Do you have to ask?" Jean replies. Armin looks between then curiously.

"Who's Levi?" he asks. Eren stiffens, and exchanges a wide-eyed look with Jean.

"Hah," Eren says. "That's a good question."

"Well, he lives with us," Jean hedges.

"He has for a while," Eren adds. "We're pretty close."

"So," Armin says, "is he your boyfriend?"

Jean lifts an eyebrow. "Usually people aren't so cool about that," he says.

"Not only are we queer," Eren gasps dramatically, "we're queer and polyamorous."

"Truly the work of the devil," Armin deadpans. Jean squints at him.

"You're not straight either, are you?" he asks, and Eren elbows him hard in the gut, even though he's curious as well. Armin fiddles with the hem of his shirt and gives another awkward laugh, even as Jean gasps for breath.

"It's that obvious?" he asks.

"No," Eren reassures him. "Jean just has really good gaydar."

"Hmm," Armin says. "Well, I'm not exactly out yet, so."

"We won't out you," Eren reassures him. "Will we, Jean?"

"Of course not," Jean wheezes.

"Thank you," Armin sighs. He walks over to the circle of mushrooms and carefully toes at the mud. "By the way, I wouldn't stand too close to the well. It's pretty old, and when it rains the ground gets unstable."

"What well?" Jean asks. He goes to stand by Armin, giving Eren a wide berth. Eren grabs at him playfully as he passes and Jean jerks back, then sticks his tongue out.

Armin wedges the toe of his shoe underneath the mud at the edge of the circle and lifts, revealing a slab of half-rotted wood and a deep, deep well. Eren's eyes go wide.

"This well," Armin says. "It's as old as the house, and very deep. Supposedly, if you fall to the bottom and look up, you'll see a sky full of stars in the middle of the day."

Jean grasps at his chest and looks pained. "I almost died," he says.

"Don't be ridiculous," Eren says. "You probably don't even weigh enough to fall through the wood."

"Nice," Jean says, glaring half-heartedly. His phone vibrates again, this time with a call, and he grimaces down at the screen.

"Levi?" Eren asks. Jean nods.

"Pray for me," he says, accepting the call. He wanders a few feet away but Eren can still hear Levi's angry voice on the other end of the line. He turns to Armin.

"So we should probably go," he says. He thinks about offering his hand, but figures that Armin probably wouldn't appreciate being covered in poison oak. "It was nice meeting you, though."

Armin shoves his hands into his pockets and rocks backwards onto his heels.

"Levi, I cannot believe you'd use that kind of language," Jean says in the background, sounding scandalized.

"It was nice to meet you, too," Armin says. "I'll see you around, probably. If you see me wandering around the lawn with scissors and a bunch of bags and vials, don't be alarmed."

Eren laughs. "I'll keep that in mind," he says. He waves and watches Armin wander back into the woods. He thinks he sees a pair of eyes watching him from the underbrush, but they're gone when he blinks. He goes over to Jean and takes the phone away from him.

"We'll be there soon, Levi," he says, and hangs up.

"He's going to kill us," Jean declares as they start back down the path. "My head will go above the fireplace and he will look at it and laugh as he drinks tea by the fire every night."

"Jean, seriously, shut up," Eren says. "Let's just focus on getting back to the house quickly."

"See, you're scared, too," Jean says, but he follows Eren back down the mountain without saying anything else.

* * *

It takes them over five hours to get everything set up, during which Levi shouts orders at them and makes snide comments about how he had to do the first half of the house by himself. An exaggeration, of course, but his scolding suitably cowed Jean and Eren, so neither call him out on it.

It's dark by the time they put the last knick knack into place. Eren has to admit that the house, which at first seemed like some foreboding portent of doom, is much more comfortable when filled with familiar furniture. Those five hours were completely worth it.

That night, while Jean scrounges up some dinner with the meager groceries they have, Eren sits on the sofa and watches Levi tap away at his phone, a pair of rectangular wire-rimmed glasses perched delicately on the bridge of his nose.

"How," Eren says, "are you already working?"

"Because unlike you, I don't get to determine my own hours," Levi replies. There's no bitterness in his voice. It's a statement of fact, but even if he was jealous, Eren wouldn't have been able to tell. "I have to go to work early tomorrow to get everything set up."

"That's disgusting," Eren says with feeling.

"So is your face," Jean calls from the kitchen. A second later there is a bang and a yelp. Karma still works, then. Levi pauses in his typing and listens for a few seconds for the vehement swearing that indicates Jean is annoyed but not harmed. Then he turns his eyes downwards once more, and Eren groans and flops backwards over the armrest of the sofa.

"Levi, let's go on a walk," Eren says. "Don't you want to get out of the house?"

"Not particularly," Levi says. "We literally just finished moving in, Eren. Plus it's fucking freezing outside, and I have work to do."

Eren pouts. "After dinner, then? Jean and I found this really cool old well not too far from here that I want to show you."

"We didn't _find_ anything," Jean says, coming into the kitchen with a spoon held above his cupped hand. "We nearly fell into it and died. They never would've found our bodies. Here, taste."

Eren sips at the spoon and makes an appreciative noise. Pleased, Jean goes back to the kitchen.

"Did you really almost fall down a well, Eren?" Levi asks. "We haven't even been here for twelve hours yet. How are you already getting into trouble?"

"It's a gift," Eren says. He picks at a loose thread on his shirt. "I'm bored."

"Why don't you work on your book?" Levi suggests. "Didn't you start one not too long ago?"

Eren sighs. "I have writer's block," he says. "Anything I try to write right now will be shit."

"Watch your language," Levi says, and smirks when Eren sputters in outrage. "Eren, go pester Jean. I really need to get this done tonight."

How offensive. Eren purses his lips angrily but gets up and goes into the kitchen anyway. Jean looks up from the pot of soup he's stirring on the stove and smiles at him.

"Levi kick you out?" he asks. Eren nods and goes to rest his head on Jean's shoulder.

"I'm bored," Eren says.

"We can do something after dinner," Jean offers. "Watch a movie or something. Maybe that'll help get your creative juices flowing."

Eren wrinkles his nose at the phrasing, which he's never been particularly fond of.

"That's gross," he says. "Creative _juices._ "

Jean lifts the ladle and slowly pours the soup back into the pot with an exaggeratedly pleased hum, and Eren laughs and shoves at his arm.

"Why do I love you," he asks rhetorically.

"Because I make you food," Jean says. "Which is ready, by the way, so go get Levi."

Eren takes a deep breath and shouts, "Levi, food is ready!" as loudly as he can, grinning when Jean flinches and smacks his arm. Levi comes in a few moments later, his glasses missing but his phone still in his hand.

"For fuck's sake, Eren," he says. "Don't yell so loud."

"Your old ears can't handle all the noise?" Eren teases.

"My old ass can still beat you up," Levi deadpans.

"Girls," Jean says, "you're both pretty. Now stop fighting and eat."

Eren sticks his tongue out at Levi, which earns him a tiny smile and a flick on the nose, before he starts eating. Considering how little food they had, the soup is actually really good, and for a few minutes they don't speak.

"So," Eren says, "walk after dinner?"

"I can't," Levi says. "I still have emails to send and a bunch of files to look through before I can call it a night."

"And since he'll be busy," Jean says, nodding towards Levi, "I have to do the dishes and stuff. Plus, isn't it kind of cold to be running around the woods?"

"It's not that cold," Eren mumbles bitterly. He stirs his soup, disappointment chasing away his appetite.

"We could still watch a movie," Jean offers, setting his own spoon down.

"The TV isn't set up," Eren points out. Jean shoots a helpless look to Levi.

"Eren, we can go for a walk tomorrow," Levi says. "You know, when the sun is out and we're less likely to fall off a mountain in the dark."

Eren rubs his palm against his jeans and sighs. "Yeah, okay. I just really wanted to do something tonight. It's our first night in the new house, you know?"

"You didn't seem all that excited to move in the first place," Levi reminds him.

"Well, we're here now," Eren says sadly. "We might as well make the best of it. Besides, I've barely seen you guys lately. With the move and the new job and college and everything, we've all been really busy."

Jean sighs. "Hopefully things will calm down now that everything's done. We'll settle into a routine soon enough."

Eren makes a face and doesn't mention how _routine_ is the last thing he wants.

* * *

Routine is what Eren gets, despite his best efforts. With his writer's block worsening every day, he has nothing better to do than to try and add spontaneity to their lives, but he finds his efforts to be in vain. Occasionally he's able to coax Jean into a play fight or Levi into abandoning work for an hour to try their hand at baking, but for the most part his boyfriends spend their time establishing patterns.

Levi wakes up first and leaves for work around seven, which is when Jean usually wakes up. Eren, because he creates his own hours, can sleep in as much as he wants, so by the time he gets up Jean is well into his online college courses. Eren spends the rest of the day trying not to die of boredom while Jean works. By five, Levi's home and Jean's done with school, and if none of them are too tired they'll do something together.

It's a simple routine, and it's pretty much the same one they had before they moved to the Hunter's House, and Eren hates it.

By the time Saturday comes around, he's so desperate for something to happen that he even agrees to go to the barbecue the neighbors are throwing to welcome them to the neighborhood.

It'll be Eren's first time meeting the neighbors. Apparently, Levi's met a few of them. He doesn't really know what to expect (no one sane moves out to such an old house in the middle of nowhere) so on Saturday morning he puts on his best pair of jeans and tries to tame his hair before he goes down to meet his boyfriends by the door.

Jean is holding a platter of brownies and Levi has all of their jackets in his hands, and they both give him annoyed look when he comes down the stairs.

"Took you long enough," Levi grumbles. Eren scowls and tries again, unsuccessfully, to tame his hair.

"I just woke up, cut me some slack," he says. "Come on, let's just go."

"Can you at least pretend to be excited?" Jean asks as they walk out of the house. "We're meeting our neighbors for the first time."

"If they live all the way out here, they can't be that great."

"What does does that say about us, then?"

They're coming up to the garden where everyone is already gathered, so Levi turns around and says, "Shut up, you two. Don't bicker in front of the fucking neighbors."

"Since when is that something you care about?" Eren asks. Levi doesn't have the chance to answer, because someone squeals and runs into him.

"Jesus," Jean says, eyes widening.

"Levi, you're here!" the person shouts excitedly. They're very androgynous, even with their short, messy brown ponytail and bespectacled brown doe eyes. Levi looks intensely uncomfortable in their grip, but he doesn't try to break out of the hug for at least a few seconds, which is a few seconds longer than he'd allow for someone he didn't like.

"Personal space, Hanji," he snaps. They let him go immediately, but the bright, beaming smile on their face doesn't dim in the slightest. Eren is instantly annoyed.

"Sorry," Hanji trills. "I'm just so glad you came! Oh! Is this Jean and Eren?"

Eren only has time to tense before he's being pulled into a bone-crushing hug. He wheezes for breath when he's released and wraps one arm around his ribs as Jean gets the same treatment. Levi makes a vaguely sympathetic face.

"I've heard so much about you!" Hanji says.

"Don't lie," Levi says absentmindedly. He's looking over his shoulder, watching some big, hunky blond approach. The man places a hand on Levi's shoulder, a strangely fatherly gesture considering he can't be much older than Levi is.

"Hello, Levi," he says warmly. His intense blue eyes rove over Jean and Eren, and Eren feels as though he's being judged harshly. "I didn't think you'd make it."

"Yeah, well." Levi looks uncomfortable. "Guys, this is Erwin, Hanji's roommate. Erwin, this is Eren and Jean."

"It's very nice to meet you both," Erwin says. It comes across incredibly insincere, and Eren smiles uncomfortably.

"Oh, you brought brownies!" Hanji exclaims, snatching the plate from an increasingly bewildered Jean. "I love brownies! We can't make them that often because chocolate isn't super good for mice, and even when we buy them Erwin always eats them before I can have more than one, but I still-"

"Breathe, Hanji," Erwin interrupts. Hanji sucks in a huge breath and releases it all in one rush of air, then shoves a brownie into their mouth and wanders off with the plate, mumbling something about putting them on a table.

Jean raises an eyebrow at Erwin. "Mice?"

"We're training a small army unit of mice," Erwin says, watching Hanji go with a fond smile on his face and completely missing the incredulous looks that steal across Jean and Eren's faces. "It's coming along quite well, actually. But if you'll excuse me, I should probably go make sure Hanji doesn't eat all of the brownies."

"We need to socially interact some more, so it's no skin off our backs," Levi says, and then, when Erwin walks away, he turns to Eren and Jean and lowers his voice. "Everyone in this house is kind of insane, but I don't think they're dangerous. Don't offend them, just to be safe."

"Levi, are you fucking kidding me?" Eren hisses. "They're raising a mouse army. _A fucking mouse army_."

"As long as they don't get into our house, I don't care what the hell they do in their free time," Levi says. "Just play nice, okay? Both of you." He grabs the fronts of their shirts and pulls them down to his level. "I know how you get. Eren, don't fight anyone. Jean, don't offend anyone."

Eren scowls and straightens up, tugging at his shirt to fix the wrinkles. "Relax, Levi," he says. "We're not actually incompetent."

Jean stares at his empty hands. "That Hanji person took my brownies."

Levi rolls. "I'm going to go find the alcohol. Go interact. There's two more neighbors from downstairs and that weird coconut-headed Arlert kid. Oh, and Mikasa should be here soon, too."

Eren perks up at that. "You invited Mikasa?"

"Well, yeah," Levi says as if it should be obvious. "She's my cousin. Why wouldn't I invite her to my own housewarming party? Even if I'm not the one who threw it. Just go. And remember what I said."

Eren shoves his hands into his pockets and watches Levi wander away. He tips his head back and looks up at the sky. There's no blue to be found anywhere, just a constant, solid layer of light grey clouds through which the light is filtering weakly. It's chilly today, like it is every day. He's never missed the beach as much as he does right now.

Jean nudges him and jerks his head to the little wooden bridge that spans the empty, dirt-bottomed concrete pond.

"I think those are the downstairs neighbors," he says, jerking his head to two people sitting on the railing. "Come on, let's go socialize."

"I really don't want to," Eren says. Jean sighs.

"Eren, don't be a jerk," he says. "Look, they threw this party for us, so the least we could do is go say hi."

"It's not much of a party," Eren grumbles. And it really isn't. He can count the number of people in the garden without even getting into double digits, and most of them are clumped around the food table. Armin's blond hair and short stature stick out like a sore thumb over by the cooler that houses the beers, and Eren makes a mental note to go over and say to hi to the one person he actually knows.

But for now, he goes with Jean to greet the downstairs neighbors.

They both look up their approach in a strangely synchronized movement that comes off as very creepy. Eren would wonder if they were twins except for the fact that they look nothing alike. One is a man with dark, close-cropped hair and wide hazel eyes, and the other is a girl, slightly taller than her companion and with a darker complexion and a long brown ponytail.

"Uh, hi," Jean says, giving an awkward little wave. Eren hides a smile behind his hand. "I'm Jean, and this is Eren. I don't think we've been introduced yet."

The woman rolls her eyes and doesn't come down from the railing she's sitting on, but she gives them a friendly smile. "Well, yeah," she says. "You guys just moved in. I'm Sasha. This idiot is Connie."

"Who are you calling an idiot?" Connie asks, scowling. He playfully shoves her arm. She widens her eyes when she loses her balance, and Jean and Eren gasp in horror when she falls right off the bridge.

"Whoops," Connie says.

Eren rushes to the railing just in time to watch Sasha flip in midair and land expertly on her feet in the dirt.

"Connie, you ass," she shouts.

"What," Jean says flatly.

"We grew up in the circus," Connie explains, rubbing at the back of his neck. He peers down at Sasha, who flips him off. "She's totally making me sleep on the couch for that," he mutters.

"Serves you right, dude," Jean says. "You pushed her off a bridge."

Eren hisses in warning. Levi told them specifically not to offend anyone, and most people would get defensive after a comment like that. Connie just laughs, though.

"She'll get me back for it," he says good-naturedly. "One time I made some comment about egotistical hunters and she set a bunch of snares in our apartment. I ended up hanging from the ceiling for, like, an hour before she let me down."

"Yeah, that was good times," Sasha says, coming up behind them. Eren doesn't even want to know how she got up here so fast.

A sudden breeze blows across the garden, rustling the dead plants and making Eren shiver in his coat and step closer to Jean. He looks in the direction the wind is coming from and sees a familiar head of black hair making its way over to where Levi's sipping at a beer and trying to fend off Hanji's attempts at conversation.

Mikasa looks up and locks eyes with him.

"Eren!" she calls, lifting a hand and beckoning him over.

"Who's that?" Sasha asks. "Your girlfriend?"

"God, no," Eren says, wrinkling his nose. "She's like my sister."

"Oh, good, 'cause she's really hot," Sasha says.

"Sasha!" Connie exclaims, scandalized. "I thought what we had was special!"

"Alas, you cannot compete with such a paragon of beauty," Sasha says. Connie clutches at his chest dramatically.

"Right," Eren says. "Well, we have to go. It was nice meeting you, though."

"Right back at you, dude," Connie says.

"Come on, Jean," Eren says, and then, when they're out of earshot: "Is everyone in this house crazy?"

"Seems like it," Jean responds.

Hanji and Erwin are scarce by the time Jean and Eren make their way over to the refreshments table, probably scared off by Mikasa. She and Levi are leaning against the table, both with a beer in one hand and a bored, deadpan look on their faces. It's extremely easy to see the resemblance between them right now.

Mikasa brightens minutely when she sees them.

"Eren," she says warmly, reaching out to clasp his hand briefly. She has Levi's aversion to touch, but unlike with Levi, that aversion doesn't go away with people she trusts. It's just one of the quirks that Eren's learned to deal with.

"Hey, Mikasa," he says. "It's good to see you."

"You, too." She looks at Jean, and something mischievous sparkles in her dark eyes. "Hello, Jean."

"Mikasa, the love of my life," Jean coos. "Do you have a Band-Aid? Because I've just fucked up my palms falling for you."

"How romantic," she deadpans, but she cracks a smile a second later. "I see you two are still putting up with my dick of a cousin."

"Fuck off," Levi mutters. Jean slings an arm around his shoulders.

"Yeah, don't bully Levi," he says. "I happen to like his dick."

Mikasa rolls her eyes. "Perv. Anyway, how's the house? Is it as dreary as it looks?"

Eren points at her and looks to Levi. "See? Mikasa agrees with me. This place looks dead."

"That's 'cause everything _is_ dead, Eren," Levi says.

"No, Eren's right," Mikasa says. "There's something off about this house. And I don't trust the people who live here. Your door has locks, right?"

"Every door in the house locks, including closets," Jean says. "Although I don't think anyone going to try and break in. They'll be too busy setting snares."

"And training rats," Eren adds.

"And eating brownies," Levi concludes. "Point is, they're all kind of batshit, but they're genuinely good people."

"Hmm," Mikasa says, unconvinced. "What about that blond kid over there? He's looked nervous ever since I got here."

"Armin's just an awkward guy," Eren says. He catches Armin's eye and waves him over. "Plus, his family has history with the house. He's probably just nervous about being here."

Mikasa's gaze sharpens. "What kind of history?"

"I'm not sure, actually."

"I know," Levi says. "But I'll tell you later." Because Armin comes up at that moment, a beer in one hand and the other shoved deep into his pocket.

"Hi," he says. "How are you enjoying your housewarming so far? Meet all the neighbors yet?"

"Are they always like this?" Eren asks him. Armin shrugs half-heartedly.

"Pretty much," he says. "Connie and Sasha always try to prank me whenever I come around here."

"Have they been able to yet?" Jean asks curiously. Armin smiles and takes a sip of his beer.

"Armin, this is Levi's cousin Mikasa," Eren says. "Mikasa, this is Armin Arlert."

"Nice to meet you," Mikasa says, sticking out a hand for him to shake briefly.

"You, too," Armin says, smiling. He looks adorable, quite frankly, and even Mikasa can't resist his big blue eyes. Her sharp gaze softens the slightest bit as she retracts her hand. "You and Levi look very similar. But you guys probably get that a lot, don't you?"

"All the time," Mikasa says. "But it's not like you knew that."

Armin shrugs. "Yeah, but I should've. People tell me all the time that I look like my grandfather did when he was younger."

"Your grandfather is the landlord, right?" Mikasa asks, with a gleam in her eye that Eren's seen before. Suddenly fearing for Armin's safety, he quickly sticks his hand into Levi's pocket and fishes around for the key to the house.

"Yeah, he is, and hey, Mikasa, the house is really cool, do you want a tour?" Eren says quickly. He gives her a tiny push to get her moving, shooting an apologetic smile to Armin as they walk away. "I'll see you later, okay? Don't be a stranger, and I'll see you two in a bit, bye!"

Mikasa, thankfully, follows his lead and walks. As soon as they turn the corner, she stops dead in her tracks. Eren runs into her back and almost falls over.

"What was that for?" she asks, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Sorry," Eren says. "You just looked like you were about to try and eat him."

"Nonsense," Mikasa says airily. "I was only going to ask him about his grandfather and the house. Besides, I like him. He's cute."

Eren looks at her out of the corner of his eye as they walk up to the front door. "Wait, cute or _cute-_ cute?"

"Does it matter?"

"Of course it does," Eren says. "You can't just go developing crushes on people you don't know."

"Uh, yes you can," she says. "You had a crush on Levi for, like, a month before you even learned his name, and that was only because I took pity and told you."

Eren flushes and jams the key into the lock. It's a big, unwieldy thing that's covered in so many dents and scratches and smudge marks that Eren's sure it's older than him. He tosses it carelessly onto the table next to he front door when he enters the house.

"Welcome to my humble abode," Eren says sarcastically. Then he smirks. "Mi casa es su casa."

She rolls her eyes. "For god's sake, Eren, you say that every time I come over. It's still not funny."

"It's kind of funny," Eren says, leading her further into the house. "Anyway, that's the living room, that's Jean's study, there's nothing upstairs except for bedrooms and bathrooms, and the kitchen is through there." He stops in the middle of the hallway. "And that's pretty much it."

"Oh, come on," Mikasa protests. "That was the worst house tour ever. There has to be something around here."

"Trust me, there isn't," Eren says, but he follows her when she wanders off. "I've spent the past week cooped up in here, looking for something interesting. The only things I found were a leaky window in the guest room and a bunch of cockroaches in my shower."

"That's disgusting," Mikasa says, poking her head into the study. Her gaze quickly roves over Jean's disorganized desk and the impeccable bookshelf before she withdraws and heads for the living room. Her eyes narrow as she steps into the room.

"What's the matter?" Eren asks. She points towards the far wall.

"There's a door or a window or something underneath the wallpaper," she says. Eren squints.

"How did you see that all the way from here?" he asks, but she ignores him.

"I don't like it," she declares.

"The door?" Eren says incredulously. "You haven't even seen it yet."

"Doesn't matter," Mikasa says. "It shouldn't be there and I don't trust it."

"You don't trust the neighbors, you don't trust the house," Eren mutters. "Is there anything you do trust?"

She looks up thoughtfully. "I trust my instincts," she says. "And you should, too."

"I write novels for a living, Mikasa," Eren says. "Fantasy novels, usually. My instincts are kind of shit."

"Then trust mine, and don't mess with that door," Mikasa says.

"Whatever. Come on, let's go back outside and get some food."

She casts one last glare at the door before following him out, but Eren quickly pushes the whole incident from his mind. In fact, he forgets about it completely. At least, he does until someone else finds the door.

And that's really where things begin to go downhill.

* * *

Eren is writing for the first time in weeks. He's not working on the draft of his novel, which has been sitting unfinished in his files for longer than he cares to admit. No, right now he's simply writing whatever comes to mind in an attempt to get past his writer's block, but it isn't working out so well.

 _The house is super old and creaky and lifeless, even with all three of us and our four crazy neighbors living here. Erwin and Hanji live upstairs in the attic apartment and are supposedly training an army of rats, for purposes which I'm unaware of. I've never met someone who goes by gender neutral pronouns before. Hanji is a cryptid, but not just because of that. They talk too much. The neighbors downstairs are Connie and Sasha, who used to be in the circus. I'm not sure if they're dating or what. They're okay, I guess, even if I think I'd get tired of their theatrics after too much exposure._

 _Jean really likes them, though, and Levi thinks Erwin and Hanji are interesting. It seems I'm the only one without weird neighbors to befriend, unless you count Armin, but he's less weird and more_

And then he blanks while trying to come up with a way to describe Armin. He waits for a few moments, hoping something will come to him, but when nothing does he huffs in irritation and goes to find his boyfriends.

It's Sunday, the only day when Jean has no online classes and Levi is completely free from work. Sundays are usually the only days when all three of them are available, so he knows they have to be somewhere around the house.

He finds them in the living room, watching Netflix on Jean's laptop and sipping at mugs of what smells like hot chocolate.

"Hey," Jean says, tipping his head back over the back of the couch to look at Eren upside down. "There's some hot chocolate left in the kitchen if you want it. Come watch a movie with us."

"I've seen everything on Netflix already, but thanks," he says.

"Everything?" Levi says dubiously.

"Everything good," Eren amends. "I was thinking we could go to town today, since we're all off."

"What's in town?" Jean asks.

"That's what I want to go find out," Eren replies. "Come on, Levi already works there and you're going to start going to the college for practical art classes and I'm going to be stuck at home all day like a housewife."

"Oh, please," Levi says. "First of all, if anyone's a housewife in this relationship, it's Jean."

"Hey!"

"And anyway, Eren, don't you want to just relax today? This past week has been so tiring."

"I've done nothing except eat, sleep, and cry about writer's block," Eren says. "I'm going to go for a walk, then."

"Have fun," Jean says. "Don't be back too late, and be careful."

"Yes, _mom_ ," Eren says, rolling his eyes.

"And bring a jacket!"

Eren sticks his tongue out at the back of Jean's head but does grab his coat before he leaves. It's been consistently overcast and cold these past few days, and Eren's not used to it yet. He doesn't know if he'll ever be used to it. He misses the ocean.

He's only made it halfway around the the house when he spots a familiar blond heading up the driveway towards the house. Eren pauses and waits for Armin to catch up.

"How close do you live that you can just walk over here?" Eren asks. "We're out in the middle of nowhere."

Armin shrugs. "My house isn't that far from here. I have work to do so I can't stay long. I just wanted to come and give you this." He hands Eren a heavy, strangely lumpy package that's been hastily wrapped in newspaper. Eren looks at him curiously and starts to unwrap it, but Armin stops him by putting a hand on top of Eren's. He looks a little nervous. "Don't open it out here."

"Why?" Eren asks, suspicious.

"Because who knows where Connie and Sasha are," Armin says. "Even Hanji would be fascinated by it."

"Okay, well, now I'm intrigued," Eren complains. "Do I really have to wait?"

"Yes," Armin says firmly. "Or at least wait until I'm gone so you can't punch me."

"Why would I punch you?" Eren asks. Armin gives him a helpless sort of look.

"I found it in my grandfather's attic," he says. "I swear to god, I was just as confused as you're going to be and I didn't, like, make it or anything."

"Armin, calm down." Eren shifts the thing to the crook of his arm so he can reach out and put a hand on Armin's shoulder. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"You will soon enough," Armin says. "Please don't think I'm creepy."

"I don't," Eren says immediately.

"Yeah, okay," Armin says. He turns and walks away, waving over his shoulder. Eren watches him go until he disappears into the forest.

"I hope he doesn't get stuck in that thicket again," he mutters to himself. His curiosity is piqued, though, so he ducks down behind a gnarled, dead tree and rips the paper open.

It's a doll, a creepy one with a tiny, serene smile and two huge button eyes.

And it looks just like Eren.

Its rough, burlap skin is the same tan shade as his and even the eyes match, one a bright gold and the other deep teal. Even creepier than that, though, is the fact that it's wearing a tiny version of his favorite jacket, the green one with the black and white wings on the back.

The one that no one at the Hunter's House has seen yet because it's still sitting in a box in his closet.

Very disturbing.

"What the hell," Eren says. The doll doesn't respond. He drops the paper carelessly on the ground and holds the doll up by its arms in front of his face. It doesn't seem at all upset at the rough treatment and just smiles up at him. He cracks a smile back. "At least now I have someone to talk to when I get bored."

He needs to show this to Levi and Jean immediately. He hurries back to the house and practically kicks the door down in his haste to get inside. His boyfriends are exactly where he left them. They watch him with wide eyes as he runs in and slides to a stop in front of them.

"Jesus," Levi says. "What the hell's gotten into you?"

"Look at this," Eren demands, holding the doll out. Jean squints at it.

"That's the creepiest thing I've ever seen," he says. "I fucking hate button eyes. Did you make that?"

"Armin gave it to me. He said he found it in his grandfather's attic."

Levi and Jean exchange looks.

"Eren," Levi says. "He didn't find that. Why would his grandfather just have a doll lying around that looks exactly like you?"

"It even has your jacket," Jean says. "Wait a minute, how would he even know what that looks like? Isn't it still upstairs?"

"Guys, I'm positive he didn't make it himself," Eren says, bouncing on his toes from excitement. "It's probably just a coincidence, but how cool is it? It's a little me!"

Levi pauses the movie and takes the doll carefully, then makes a face and quickly hands it back.

"There's so much dust on that thing, holy shit," he says. "Why would you bring that into the house?"

Eren frowns. "I thought it was cool," he says defensively.

"It's creepy as hell is what it is," Jean says.

"That Arlert kid is weird enough as it is," Levi says. "Everything about this situation is suspicious. You know what happened to Armin's great-aunt that caused the whole family to move?"

"I don't see what any of this has to do with the doll," Eren says.

"She disappeared," Levi says, as if Eren hadn't spoken. "She just up and vanished one day and no one knew where the hell she went. The only clue they could find was a doll filled with sand that looked exactly like her, and it was traumatic enough that Papa Arlert moved his pregnant wife out and changed their last name. It used to be something normal, like Jones or Smith or something."

Eren holds the doll against his chest protectively. "Seriously, Levi? _That's_ what you came up with? That whole story sounds fake as fuck."

"It does sound fake, Levi," Jean says.

"Well, it's the truth. And anyway, that wasn't even the point of the story, Eren, for fuck's sake." He pulls Eren down onto the couch next to him so that they're eye-to-eye. "Doesn't it strike you as even a little suspicious that Arlert just _happened_ to find a doll that looks exactly like you?"

Biting his lip, Eren looks down at the doll. "Of course it's suspicious," he says. "But I trust Armin. Mikasa likes him."

"Mikasa likes anyone that she can mother hen," Levi says.

"Eren, look, we're not telling you to burn the stupid thing," Jean interjects. "We're just saying that the neighbors are fucking weird and we need to be careful. Next thing you know, you're going to walk outside and find an animal sacrifice on the roof of the car or something."

"You're being dramatic," Eren says. "Which means you're being unreasonable, so I don't have to listen to you."

" _We're_ being unreasonable?" Levi asks incredulously.

"Little Eren and I are going to go finish unpacking," Eren says, standing and lifting his chin defiantly. "It's just a doll, guys. It's not a fucking demon. And considering it's the most interesting thing that's happened to me since we moved to this stupid house, I thought you'd be at least a little supportive."

He leaves before they can answer.

* * *

Eren does not start wearing his green jacket just so he and the doll match. He doesn't. He just really likes the jacket. The fact that he ends up twinning with the doll most days is just a bonus perk.

The thing's name ends up being Little Me, because Little Eren doesn't have the same ring to it. Levi and Jean refuse to call it anything other than The Doll, with so much disdain and emphasis that Eren capitalize it in his mind.

All three of them realize, a day or two after Armin gives Little Me to Eren, that they're in the middle of a fight about said doll. None of them are sure about the specifics of the argument, but the general feelings are offense and defiance on Eren's part and determination on the part of Jean and Levi. Eren starts bringing Little Me with him everywhere just to see the flash of horror in his boyfriends' eyes when they see it.

Of course, all of that is forgotten when they discover—or rediscover, in Eren's case—the little door behind the wallpaper. It's Jean who finds it, while Levi's at work and Eren's busy trying not to die of boredom. Jean walks into the living room, takes a breath like he's about to say something, and then stops. Eren looks over and sees him frowning at something on the other side of the room.

"What?" he says.

"Has there always been a door there?" Jean asks. Eren sits up so fast that Little Me goes flying off of his chest.

"I can't believe I forgot about that," he says. He goes over to the wall and runs his fingertips over the protruding edges of the door's outline. Jean walks up behind him and leans over his shoulder to see better.

"Why is it here?" he asks.

Eren shrugs. "The house used to be connected, remember? It was probably a dumbwaiter or something."

"Why would a dumbwaiter be so close to the ground?" Jean says skeptically.

"How would I know?" Eren says, irritated. "I didn't even know this thing existed before last week."

"Hmm," Jean says. "I'm going to go look for a key to open it."

"It's probably a big one," Eren says, studying the imprint of the lock. "Big and old."

"Got it," Jean says. Eren hears him rummaging around in the kitchen drawers for a few moments, and he returns with a key held triumphantly in one hand.

"Find it?" Eren asks.

"I think so," Jean says, showing him the key. It's a big, ugly brass thing that looks like it hasn't been used at all since it was first made. Eren scoots over so that Jean can run the key along the edges of the door. The wallpaper tears with a satisfying ripping sound and Eren feels anticipation curling in his stomach. He taps his thigh impatiently while Jean unlocks the door. It takes a little wiggling to get it to open, but once it's out of the frame it swings open easily. Eren holds his breath as it opens, revealing…

… bricks.

"What?" Eren says.

"Well, that's disappointing," Jean says dryly. "They must have bricked it off when they divided up the house."

Eren reaches out to touch the bricks, as if they'll somehow disappear and reveal whatever was originally there.

"This door is so useless," he says. "Why the hell is it so tiny?"

"Dude, who cares?" Jean says. "I have an essay to finish writing. Can you look over it when I'm done?"

"Sure," Eren says, still frowning at the bricks. Jean doesn't move from where he's crouched next to Eren for a while, so Eren turns to look at him, only to find himself under his boyfriend's scrutiny. "What?"

"You look really disappointed about this useless door," Jean says.

"I _am_ disappointed about this useless door," Eren says. "This was the most interesting thing to happen so far."

"That's pathetic," Jean says. He pulls himself up with a hand on the wall and drops the key into Eren's lap. "Here, you can have this to remind yourself of your failures as a human being. I'll make sure to put lots of typos and grammar mistakes into my essay so you'll have something to focus on later."

"That's just an excuse for your shitty writing, isn't it?" Eren asks, closing the door.

"Fuck off, Jaeger," Jean says. He picks up Little Me from the floor and tosses it carelessly onto the couch as he leaves, prompting Eren to go over to make sure it's okay. He flops down onto the couch with a sigh and pulls the doll onto his chest.

"At this point," he tells it, "I'd be willing to do paid labor just to escape the monotony of everyday life."

Little Me doesn't respond.

"You're right," he says. "It's totally Jean's fault that no one talks to me all day."

"Go suck a dick, Eren," Jean calls from his study. Eren laughs and turns onto his side.

"Well, I would suck yours if you weren't so busy all the time," he calls back. There's a pregnant pause.

"Goddammit, Eren, I'm trying to write an essay," Jean says. "Do you know how hard that is with a boner?"

"I'm guessing it's pretty _hard_ , all right," Eren says. "Your essay is due at midnight, right? Couldn't you take a break for half an hour?"

"I don't know if I should listen to you," Jean says. "I have an awkward boner now and it's completely your fault."

"I could help you with that, if you want," Eren purrs. Another pause, and then the frantic sounds of Jean stumbling out of his chair. He appears in the doorway to the living room, eyes wide and dark, and Eren grins.

Score.

* * *

They take more than half an hour.

* * *

Levi calls to let them know that he'll be home late that night and not to wait up for him ("And the house better not be dirty when I get home or I swear you're both sleeping on the couch," Levi says, to which Eren responds by rolling his eyes at Little Me). Jean makes simple (yet delicious) sandwiches for dinner before retreating upstairs to the bedroom to finish his essay. Eren sits his own laptop on Jean's desk and opens up his novel. His word count is stuck somewhere around thirty thousand and remains unchanged no matter how hard Eren stares at it. He even sets Little Me down in his lap, as if their combined efforts might be enough to magically raise the word count.

He struggles for only an hour before giving up and shutting down his computer. The ceiling creaks slightly as Jean moves around in the bedroom, so Eren goes upstairs to see if he can persuade his boyfriend to help alleviate his boredom.

Jean doesn't look up when Eren comes in, but he does grunt in annoyance when Eren flops dramatically onto the bed.

"I'm bored," Eren announces.

"When are you not bored, these days?" Jean replies. "You know, they say only boring people get bored."

"That's not true," Eren says. "Because I'm bored, and I'm certainly not boring."

"Then go entertain yourself and let me write my essay," Jean says.

"Aren't you done yet?" Eren whines. Jean glares at him.

"No, I'm not, because _someone_ decided that two in the afternoon was a good time to have sex."

"It's always a good time to have sex," Eren says. "And anyway, it should take you this long to write one essay. I can almost guarantee that I wrote longer things in shorter amounts of time when I was in college."

"If you're such a fast writer then why isn't your novel done yet?" Jean snaps, and immediately winces. "That was uncalled for."

"Yeah, it was," Eren says coldly.

"Sorry," Jean says, looking at Eren with genuine remorse. Eren huffs and nods, accepting the apology. "But anyway, why don't you grab your laptop and come sit with me while you work?"

"I literally just spent an hour trying to write," Eren says. "I have no inspiration."

"Incredible," Jean says. "Washed up at twenty-two."

"Fuck you," Eren says. "Pay attention to me, I'm bored."

"Eren, I really have to finish this essay."

"Cuddle with me?" Eren says.

"Eren, for god's sake." Jean pauses. "If you promise not to wiggle around too much, I'll cuddle with you."

Eren grins and, after setting Little Me onto the dresser, crawls up the bed to lie down next to Jean. He wiggles and shifts until he's comfortable, with his head resting on Jean's shoulder and his arm around Jean's waist.

"Does The Doll have to be staring right at us?" Jean complains.

"Yes," Eren says. "He likes to know what's going on."

"I'm actually scared for my life right now," Jean says. "I fucking hate its creepy button eyes."

Eren shrugs, and closes his eyes.

When he opens them again, his eyelids are heavy, and the air in the bedroom is still and silent. He looks groggily up at Jean, only to find that his boyfriend is fast asleep. The clock on the dresser reads just after three in the morning. Groaning, Eren pulls himself out of bed. He checks to make sure Jean turned his essay in, then closes the laptop, sets it on the bedside table, and pulls the blanket up around Jean's shoulders.

Levi isn't there, and Eren is a little worried. Surely he's not still working, right? His phone is downstairs and he doesn't know the password to Jean's, so he can't text his boyfriend to find out where he is.

The idea of wandering around the house so late at night is unappealing, to say the least, especially with how creaky and creepy it gets at night, but Eren really wants his phone. After a few moments of deliberation—does he go back to sleep, or does he go get his phone from downstairs so he can find out where his boyfriend is?—he gets out of bed and heads for the stairs.

There are a lot of small, uncovered windows in useless places, like at the top of the stairs or on walls where they don't even allow any sunlight in. Moonlight floods in through these windows, illuminating Eren's path as he carefully walks down the stairs, taking extra care to avoid the ones that creak lest he wake up Jean.

At the bottom of the stairs, Eren pauses to look around for a light switch. A shadow darts across a path of moonlight on the floor, and he freezes with his hand flat on the wall. His heart pounding, he waits a few seconds to see if the shadow will return. It doesn't, and he briefly wonders if he's simply seeing things.

He finds the light and switches it on, wincing at the sudden flare of pain in his eyes from the glare. As they adjust, he squints at the floor, and then looks up just in time to see another shadow flit down the hallway. This time he _knows_ he's not seeing things. A large part of him wants to turn and run back upstairs, to where Jean is sleeping peacefully. Some tiny voice in the back of his mind, though, is urging him to investigate the shadows. They looked small, he rationalizes, so they're probably not dangerous.

He pads into the living room on quiet feet, following the shadows. Another one runs across his periphery, going slowly enough that Eren gets a good look at its small, round rodent body before it disappears behind the little door. Eren really doesn't know what he's going to do with a rat, but he doesn't want to just let it run wild around the house while he's sleeping, so he creeps up to the door on silent feet and crouches next to it. Taking a deep breath, he yanks the door open.

It's no longer bricks. Eren's mouth drops open in shock when he sees the—portal is the only way to describe it. It's a long tunnel that stretches farther and farther back even as Eren watches, like someone slowly stretching out a slinky into a long tube. The very walls of the tunnel seem to glow with purple light that falls lightly across his face.

Eren knows he should probably shut the door, go upstairs, wake up his boyfriend, and ask Jean to drive him to an asylum to be institutionalized. Instead, he gets down onto his hands and knees, and he crawls into the tunnel.

It's kind of a tight fit, since the door was clearly made for someone smaller than him, but once he's through the frame it's fine. The tunnel's floor and walls are made of some soft spongy material that absorbs Eren's weight easily as he crawls. He swears that the air even smells different in the tunnel, more stale but sweeter, somehow.

The tunnel lets off back into his living room, and Eren is confused. But this living room, though it has the same furniture and wallpaper and size and shape as his living room, is missing the few lone boxes that clutter up one corner of the room and drive Levi insane. And the painting that hangs above the fireplace, some dismal landscape shrouded in clouds, now shows a bright, sunny version of the same scene.

Frowning, Eren looks around for the rat that led him here in the first place. It's disappeared, but he does notice that there's light and sound coming from somewhere outside of the living room. He doesn't know what to expect of this place that's his house but clearly not, so he treads lightly and carefully as he follows the noise to the kitchen.

Jean is there, and Levi, and they both turn to greet him with matching smiles when he walks in.

Matching smiles, and matching button eyes.

The same shiny, soulless buttons that decorate Little Me's face now adorn his boyfriends'—no, these _things_ can't be his boyfriends, can they?—except that Jean's are a light golden-brown and Levi's are deep grey. Eren is horrified. He takes a step back into the hallway.

"What," he gasps. "What's going on? Who are you?"

"Don't you recognize us?" the fake Levi asks, pouting in a decidedly un-Levi-ish expression. "It's us, your boyfriends."

"You're _not_ my boyfriends," Eren insists.

"We're your Other Boyfriends," the fake Jean says. "Everyone has them."

"Everyone has fake boyfriends?" Eren asks skeptically.

"Not boyfriends, necessarily," Other Jean says. "Sometimes it's an Other Mother."

"Or an Other Father," Other Levi adds.

"Or an Other Sibling, or Cousin, or Neighbor. And they're not fake. We're like fairy godparents. We're just here to make sure everyone has a safe place they can go to when life gets a little tough." Other Jean turns back to the stove and pokes at something sizzling away in a pot. The enticing smell of bacon wafts through the kitchen, making his stomach rumble. Other Levi pulls out one of the chairs at the table and pats it in clear invitation for Eren to join him.

Eren knows this is a bad idea; he can feel it in his stomach like a black hole, sucking all the good feelings out of him, but he sits anyway, because the bacon smells good and because this is the most interesting thing to happen to him since he moved to the Hunter's House.

And that was really his first mistake.

* * *

 **This was my project for Nanowrimo 2017, and I have to say, I'm very proud of it. Leave me a comment letting me know what you think, and don't forget to check out my tumblr, gabrielthetricksterarchangel.**


	2. Chapter 2

" **Her mother ignored her; she was talking to the shop assistant. They were talking about which kind of sweater to get for Coraline, and were agreeing that the best thing to do would be to get one that was embarrassingly large and baggy, in the hopes that she might one day grow into it."**

— **Neil Gaiman,** _ **Coraline**_

The Others are nothing like the Jean and Levi he left on the other side of the little door. Eren notices this as they're eating (breakfast food, even though the clock and the moon both proclaim it to be late at night, but he's certainly not complaining). Other Jean is quiet throughout the entire meal for once, seemingly content to nibble on a piece of toast and watch Eren devour his food. Other Levi talks, but in a subdued, warmer version of his normally disdainful voice. He refills Eren's glass of juice without Eren having to ask, and doesn't even twitch when a drip of syrup lands on Eren's shirt.

When he's done eating, he automatically takes his dishes to the sink to wash them, but Other Levi stops him.

"You can just leave those," he says. "We'll clean them later."

Eren blinks at him in complete surprise, then grins.

"Awesome," he says. He's reminded, suddenly (as if he could forget), that these people aren't _actually_ his boyfriends. At the moment, that's completely fine by him. "So, um. What do you want to do?"

"We can do whatever you want," Other Levi says eagerly. "We could watch a movie, or play a boardgame, or go outside."

Eren visibly perks up at that, and the Others both smile.

"Outside it is," Other Levi says. "Your shoes should be by the front door, if you want to go put them on. I'll just be a minute."

Other Jean accompanies Eren to the front door, where they find Eren's favorite pair of ratty old combat boots.

"Those are cute," Other Jean says, and Eren looks at him in confusion. The real Jean hates these boots and says that they make Eren look like a hobo, so either this Jean has a completely different opinion than the real Jean, or he's just a much, much better liar.

"Thanks," he says, because he was raised to be polite.

Other Levi joins them only a few moments later with a jacket in one hand and the house key in the other. Looking at the key, Eren is reminded of the big brass one that he left on his dresser, the one that unlocks the little door behind the wallpaper. He thinks of Jean, left sleeping alone back at the house, and is struck with a brief moment of anxiety that something might happen to the key. But then Other Levi smiles at him, and the anxiety dispersed like the fog that sometimes creeps across the dead lawn.

There's no fog out tonight, Eren is pleased to notice. Sometimes, back in California, a light fog would steal up from the ocean and dim the sight of the road, but it was never so thick or all-encompassing as it can get here.

Other Jean leads the way as they walk down the porch stairs, which don't creak at all. The air is cool and crisp, and Eren shivers underneath his t-shirt and flannel pants. Other Levi offers him the jacket.

"Where do you want to go?" he asks, and Eren shrugs.

"I don't know," he says. "I don't really care. I just wanted to explore the forest, back in my world, but I never got the chance."

"The well might be a good place to start," Other Jean says. "That's where the woods start to get thick."

"The well," Eren says. "That hole in the ground way up along that path?"

"Yes, of course. What other well would we be talking about?" Levi teases playfully. How very unlike the real Levi he is. This Levi is so… nice. So far, he hasn't made a single negative comment, and neither has Jean, for that matter. It's a nice break from his boyfriends' normally snarky and sarcastic personalities.

Eren hangs back as the Others start to walk around the house. He looks up at the Hunter's House, taking in the impeccable paint job, the bright green lawn, the cricket song that permeates the air. The whole house just seems so much more _alive_ than it ever did back on the other side of the door. If this is a dream, Eren doesn't ever want to wake up.

He hurries to catch up to the others, a lightness in his step that he thought he'd left behind when they moved.

The walk is fantastic.

* * *

He falls asleep on the couch in the middle of a movie, with his head resting against Other Jean's shoulder and Other Levi's feet in his lap. He wakes up on the same couch, alone, staring at a depressing blue painting above a mantle devoid of any personal touches, and he is appalled.

The house seems even more drab than normal when he has such a renovated and lively version to compare it to. His eyes land on the little door and widen. His knee almost goes through the glass coffee table when he lunges for it, but he ignores the pain in favor of yanking open the door.

"What?" he hisses, confused. His eyes rove restlessly over the bricks, looking for any hint of a purple glow or soft velvet passageways. Is it possible that he actually did dream all that up last night? But that doesn't make sense. Usually his subconscious dredges up images of strange, fantastical creatures or empty wastelands filled with nothing but ducks. He never has dreams so coherent and linear.

Disturbed, he slowly pads on socked feet down the hallway and up the stairs. The bedroom is empty save for Little Me, which he brings with him when he goes back downstairs. His boyfriends—the real Jean and Levi, with normal eyes instead of those oversized buttons—are sitting at the kitchen table, sipping at steaming mugs of tea and, judging by the sudden silence when he walks into the kitchen, talking. Jean smiles at him.

"Morning, sleeping beauty," he says. "Do you want tea? Or breakfast? Levi and I just had cereal, but I could make you something, if you want."

Eren sits next to Levi and studies him while Jean rummages around in the fridge. His grey eyes are a little more dull than normal, and the bags underneath them are more pronounced, but other than that there's no indication that he came home as late as he did.

"Levi," he begins, anticipation and excitement curling in his gut, along with an anxiety to know the truth. "When did you get home last night?"

"Late," Levi responds, and takes a pointedly long sip of his tea. Eren waits patiently for him to finish.

"Was I sleeping on the couch when you came in?" Eren asks, despite the obvious fact that Levi doesn't feel like talking right now. Levi, for his part, doesn't respond for a few moments, only takes another sip of tea and doesn't break eye contact with Eren, but finally he sighs and rolls his eyes.

"Yes, you were on the couch," he says. "And before you start whining about your shitty back, I didn't move you because I was dead on my feet and I didn't feel like accidentally dropping you down the fucking stairs. His eyes narrow suspiciously.

"What?" Eren asks innocently.

"You're never this chipper in the morning after sleeping on the couch," Levi says. "What did you do?"

Eren wiggles in his chair and clasps his hands in front of his face, grinning broadly. Jean sets down a bowl of fruit salad in front of him and raises an eyebrow.

"Oh god, it's something horrible," he says. "I bet it's something absolutely horrific. Are you going to jail? Are we going to have to scrounge up bail?"

"If anyone's a felon here, it's you," Eren says. "But no, shut up, I didn't do anything illegal last night."

"But you did do something," Levi says.

"Well, I didn't do something so much as I went somewhere," Eren says coyly.

"Enough with the riddles, Dumbledore, just spit it out already," Jean says, scowling.

"Okay, okay. So. You know that little door we found behind the wallpaper that was all bricked up?"

Jean nods.

"No?" Levi says.

"Oh," Eren says. "Well, we found this little door hidden behind the wallpaper, but when we opened it the whole thing was filled with bricks."

"Of course," Levi says sarcastically, and sips his tea.

"Well, last night I woke up super late and came downstairs to see if you were back," he says to Levi. Then he turns and addressed both of his boyfriends. "Except I saw a rat or something, so I followed it and it led me to the little door. But when I opened it, the bricks were gone, and there was this weird glowing tunnel thing."

Jean nods sagely. "That makes perfect sense."

"Eren," Levi starts, but Eren cuts him off.

"That wasn't even the weird part. When I went through the tunnel, I ended up back _here_ , except everything was the opposite. The house wasn't creaky and boring, the grass outside wasn't dead, it wasn't super cold when we went outside. You guys were there, too, except you had buttons for eyes and you were nice to me."

"We're already nice to you," Levi says. "Hang on. Did you say there was a rat in the house?"

"You guys are _not_ nice to me," Eren says. "You're all sarcastic and snarky and shit. Other Jean and Other Levi weren't."

"Eren, rats," Levi says. "Did you only see the one, or were there a lot?"

"Levi, you're missing the point," Eren says, scowling. "You had _buttons_ for _eyes_."

"Do you think the rat could've come from Erwin's flat?" Jean asks.

"Maybe," Levi says. "I'll talk to him after I get back."

"See, this ignoring me thing? Totally not nice," Eren says, and Levi turns to him with an exasperated sigh.

"Eren, you were asleep," he says. "I get that you like to write fantasy more than realistic fiction, but come on. You have to know you were only dreaming."

"Where are you going?" Jean asks, while Eren pouts.

"To buy some fucking rat traps," Levi says. "And a hell of a lot of bleach. I'll be back soon. If you guys eat anything out of the pantry, check to make sure a rat didn't get into it first."

He leaves his mug half-filled on the table and ruffles Eren's hair before leaving. A peace offering. Eren huffs, but leans into the touch the slightest bit. Maybe they're right, and he only dreamed he was tramping all around the forest with a Jean and a Levi who had button eyes. It certainly makes more sense than the alternative, which is that a whole other world exists through that tunnel.

Except when he's changing his clothes later, he sees a tiny stain on his shirt that makes his heart skip a beat on his chest. There, right above where his heart would be, is a small golden-brown stain.

A syrup stain.

* * *

Eren goes out. Jean, though he finished his essay, has other homework to catch up on, and Levi's trip to the nearby town will take at least an hour, so Eren decides to be sociable and visit the neighbors.

It's foggy today, so he puts on a hat to keep the moisture out of his hair. As he's closing and locking the front door, something brushes up against his ankle and he yelps and jumps back, his heart pounding.

He looks down with wide eyes and blows out an embarrassed huff of a laugh when he sees the cat winding around his legs. It's a lithe cream-colored thing staring up at him with serious blue eyes, fearless even when he reaches down to pet it. As far as cats go, it's pretty cute, but Eren actually has something to do today and he can't let himself get distracted by stray cats.

It lets out a little rumble of protest when he nudges it away from his legs, but when he tries to pet it again it hisses and jerks out of reach.

"Fine, then," Eren says to it. "Sit out here in the fog like a dumbass."

The cat lifts one paw and licks at it, which Eren takes as a dismissal. Rolling his eyes—even the animals around here ignore him—he turns and heads down towards the cellar. It's easy to find, even in the dense fog, thanks to the rainbow fairy lights strung along the railing. He almost falls and breaks his neck on the concrete stairs, barely catching himself against the doorframe. Almost immediately a cacophony of barking starts up, and Eren groans quietly.

They have dogs.

It's not that he doesn't like dogs. It's just that they—and most animals, actually—are guarded and cautious around him, for reasons he has yet to discern. And judging by the high-pitched yapping coming from inside the house, these dogs are going to be less skittish and more aggressive in expressing their distrust.

He hears a muffled shout from the other side of the door. "Okay, enough! Sasha, control your dogs!" The door swings open, blocking out Sasha's reply. Connie has his eyes closed, yawning hugely behind his hand, but he perks up when he finally sees Eren. "Oh. Hi. I wasn't expecting you."

Eren is suddenly reminded that it's only just after eight in the morning, and a lot of people are normally still asleep at this time.

"Shit, did I wake you up?" he asks.

"Nah, we were already up," Connie replies, waving a hand dismissively. He jerks forward suddenly and catches himself on the doorframe, then glares down at the three dogs trying to push past him. "Damn it."

"They're cute," Eren offers.

"They're Sasha's," Connie replies. He points to a pomeranian, a pitbull, and a greyhound. "This is Femur, Armour, and Collie."

Eren makes a face. "Interesting names," he says.

"You're telling me," Connie says, scoffing. "Wait, I'm being so rude right now. Do you want to come in? We just finished breakfast but we can make you something if you're hungry."

"I already ate, but thanks." Eren toes off his shoes by the front door and hangs his coat on the back of a chair that's positively overflowing with jackets and hoodies. Connie heads further into the house, passing by a large framed poster that catches Eren's attention. It's a painter's rendition of Connie and Sasha in sparkly blue leotards, Connie hanging in midair and Sasha upside down on a trapeze with her arms outstretched to catch him.

Eren blinks at the poster, then follows Connie. They find Sasha sprawled over a chaise lounge, flipping aimlessly through a magazine. She looks up and immediately brightens when she spots Eren.

"Hey, neighbor!" she greets, pulling herself to her feet in one graceful movement. She crosses the room and pulls him into a quick hug, kisses his cheek, then bends to greet her dogs. Eren is startled by the affection, and he casts a quick look to Connie, unsure of their relationship and unsure of how he'll react. But Connie's watching Sasha with a look of immense fondness on his face, one that Eren can hardly even comprehend, and he relaxes and allows Sasha to pull him towards the couch.

"So," she says while Connie disappears into the kitchen. "How are you liking the Hunter's House so far? It's _such_ a paragon of beauty, isn't it?"

Eren grins, sarcasm coming easier than blatant affection from these people he hardly knows.

"Oh, absolutely," he says. "I can't even fathom why it's not in every tourist guidebook there is."

Sasha giggles. "But seriously, though, how are you settling in? There aren't any problems, I trust?"

"The house is really nice," Eren says honestly, shrugging. "I bit creakier than I'm used to, but. I'm pretty sure I saw a rat running around last night, though."

"A rat?" Connie asks, coming over with three mugs held expertly in his hands. Eren takes his gratefully and hums in a pleasure when he sips at the coffee. "Like, what kind of rat?"

"I don't know," says Eren, who didn't know that there were multiple types of rats. "A white one? It honestly wasn't that big, but it freaked Levi out."

Connie and Sasha look at each other meaningfully. "Erwin," they say in unison.

"Right, isn't he training a rat army or something?" Eren asks. "Do you think one of them could have escaped?"

"I doubt it," Connie says. "Hanji likes to experiment with them, so they're both super careful to keep them contained."

"Experiments?" Eren asks worriedly.

"Nothing like what you're thinking," Sasha is quick to reassure him. "Just puzzles to test brain power and stuff like that."

"Hmm," Eren says, and sips at his coffee. "So what about you guys? What drew you here?"

"Honestly, we didn't come here so much as we were dumped here," Sasha says. "We worked for a travelling circus, right? And one of our acts went wrong during practice one day while we were in this town."

"We talked to our boss and we all decided that it was best if they went on while we were in the hospital," Connie says. "But by the time we were recovered, the town had grown on us, just a little bit. And then we found out that this place was up for rent, so we just. Took the opportunity."

"That's actually really cute," Eren says. "Definitely a lot more cute than my story. Levi got a new job here and Jean goes to school at the college, so it just made sense to move out here, I guess."

"What about you?" Connie asks.

"I'm a writer," Eren says. "So I can literally work from anywhere as long as I have my laptop."

"Oh, that's cool," Sasha says.

"Very romantic," Connie agrees. "Are you working on anything right now?"

"Kind of," Eren says. "Writer's block, you know? I guess I just ran out of inspiration." Eren doesn't know why he's telling this to Connie and Sasha, when not even Jean and Levi know just how bad this bout of writer's block is. There's something open and trustworthy about them, though, that has nothing to do with their friendly personalities, though those help a lot, too. They seem like they can be very childlike at times, but they're also what Eren's mother would've called old souls.

"Ah, that sucks, dude," Connie says. "I hope you find it again." It's kind of a refreshing change to not be met with well-meaning but ultimately useless advice in response to finding out about Eren's writer's block, and he finds himself smiling genuinely.

"Thanks," he says. There's an old grandfather clock in the corner, a large and ornately carved wooden one with a beady-eyed wooden robin perched on top of it, and Eren starts when he sees the time. "Jeez, it's 8:45 already?"

"Do you have somewhere to be?" Connie asks.

"No, but I do have some stuff I need to get done," Eren says. "And Levi should be back from the store by now, so I should probably go help him."

"For sure. Don't let us keep you," Sasha says. "Do you need us to walk you out?"

"Nah, it's fine," Eren says. "It was nice talking to you. Thanks for the coffee."

Sasha beams at him. She really is very pretty, in a softer and more girlish way than Eren's used to, thanks to Mikasa's flat eyes and sharp features.

"Oh, Eren," she says suddenly. "Every month or so there's a big barbecue for all the neighbors, and everyone pitches in to bring food or whatever. You're coming to this month's, right? I mean, usually it's closer to the end of the month but we figured we'd move it up to next weekend in honor of you guys moving in."

"Sounds fun," Eren says sincerely. He's not normally one for a lot of social interaction but he finds that a barbecue is enticing. "What should we bring?"

Sasha's eyes glitter. "Jean did the brownies at the housewarming party, right? Do you think he could make them again?"

Connie makes a sound perilously close to a moan. "Those were so good!"

"I'll pass the message along," Eren says, laughing. "Hey, can I ask you kind of a personal question?"

"Our lives are open books, dude," Connie says.

"Are you two dating?"

Sasha chokes on her coffee and it takes Eren a moment to realize that she's laughing. Connie, for his part, simply looks a little horrified.

"Are you kidding?" he asks. "No, she's like my best friend!"

"Oh, cool." He smiles slyly at Sasha. "Remember my friend Mikasa? I'll definitely be inviting her next weekend."

"O-oh?" Sasha says, blushing.

"She really likes brown eyes," Eren says. "Well, it was nice seeing you. Bye!"

And he exits, dogged—quite literally—by Femur and Armor, the sound of Sasha's spluttering and Connie's laughter trailing behind him. He carefully uses his foot to keep the dogs in the house while he closes the door, and then he turns and walks up the stairs with his hat low on his head and his hands shoved into his pockets.

The fog is denser now than it was before, swirling over the ground in an eerie, seemingly-impenetrable cloud of thick white smoke. Eren treads carefully as he goes back to the house, shuffling along so he doesn't step on anything. It reminds him of how he used to shuffle along in the ocean to avoid stepping on stingrays, but for once his memories aren't accompanied by a pang of nostalgia and longing.

The cat is still there on the porch, curled up with two other cats on the welcome mat. They look comfortable and Eren can't find it in himself to disturb them, so he walks past the porch steps and continues on to the other side of the house. He walks almost a full circle, until he finds the creaky metal stairs that lead up to the attic apartment. There's a wooden sign hanging from the railing that doesn't have anything on it except for chibi anime versions of Hanji and Erwin with a rat wearing camouflage standing in between them.

Hanji and Erwin both unnerve him immensely, unlike Sasha and Connie, so it's no hardship for him to pass by the stairs. Except he hears the attic door open, and a moment later Hanji's exuberant voice calls down to him. It's loud enough that he can't pretend not to have heard it unless he wants them to think he has terrible hearing damage, so he pauses and waits for them to join him.

They look like they've been up for hours already, despite how early it is. Their eyes are unusually subdued behind their thick glasses, and their mouth is twisted down into a frown.

"Eren, can I talk to you?" they ask.

"Sure," Eren says. "Is something wrong?"

"I don't know," Hanji says, scowling like the words physically hurt them. "The mice asked me to give you a message."

"The mice," Eren repeats blankly. Hanji nods, ponytail flopping about madly.

"They told me to warn you away from the door," they whisper, leaning in slightly. "The little door. Does that mean anything to you?"

Eren's eyes widen involuntarily and he takes a step back.

"How… how do you know about that?" he asks. Unless Levi told them? But Levi's not social even when he's in a good mood, and he's definitely not the type to stand around and chat with the crazy neighbors about Eren's weird dreams.

"I told you, the mice told me," Hanji says. "They talk to Erwin, too, but he's not as good as I am at understanding them. Anyway, they seemed really worried about something, so I assume this is important. What were they talking about, anyway? What little door?"

"Just some dumbwaiter or something we found behind the wallpaper," Eren says absently. "But it's all bricked up, so it's not like we could even mess around with it anyway."

"Oh." Hanji looks relieved. "False alarm then, I guess. Well, it was good to see you."

They turn to go, but Eren calls them back.

"Hey, Hanji, wait! Does anyone have cats around here?"

Hanji grins, for some reason. "You must have met the Three Stooges," they say. "The yellow ones are Curly and Larry, and the brown one is Moe."

"But who do they belong to?" Eren asks. Hanji shrugs.

"They're strays," they say. "We all kind of pitch in to feed them, but for the most part they're wild. They get into a lot of fights with Sasha's dogs so we try not to encourage them to return. Well, as much as we can while feeding them, anyway."

"Oh," Eren says. "Okay. Thanks, Hanji. Um. Tell the mice I said thanks, I guess."

"Sure thing, Eren," Hanji says, grinning. "Have a good day! Try not to get sick in all this fog."

"No promises," Eren says, smiling politely until Hanji is out of sight. He walks back to his door with his mind swirling with thoughts, most of them centered around rats and doors and big button eyes. He'd have to ask the Others about the rats.

He pauses on the porch, wondering when the hell he decided to return to the Other world. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he carefully steps over the cats and walks into his house. He's greeted by the smell of bleach, and he follows it to the kitchen, where he finds Levi scrubbing furiously at the floor with a brush.

"Need any help?" he asks. Levi pauses to swipe his hand across his forehead and looks up.

"No, Eren. You know the deal," he says. Eren rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah. Jean cooks, you clean, and I stay out of the way."

"I think Jean might be free, though, if you want to go bother him."

It's as clear a dismissal as Levi returning to his task, so Eren sighs and makes his way upstairs. Jean, it seems, is not actually free. Eren finds him passed out in their bedroom, sprawled across the bed like he flopped down and then fell asleep where he lay. He actually does look exhausted, with circles under his eyes that are made all the more stark for the paleness of his skin. He doesn't stir even when Eren accidentally slams the door shut.

He goes to the closet on the other side of the room and roots around in the pile of dirty laundry for his favourite sweatshirt, an old one from college that's lost all of its color but is still the softest thing he owns. He also finds Little Me, shoved into the back of the closet like trash. Eren glares at Jean as he pulls it out, but his boyfriend sleeps on obliviously.

Holding the doll close to his chest, he goes to sit on the corner of the bed, one of the few spaces not taken up by Jean's long limbs.

"I've had such a _morning_ ," he sighs, unsure if he's talking to Jean or to Little Me. It doesn't really matter, in the end, since neither of them is capable of responding. "Connie and Sasha are really nice, even if they're a little immature and obnoxious, and they have these three dogs with fucking weird names. You'd like them, I think." He pokes Jean in the cheek and smiles when it makes Jean's nose wrinkle adorably.

"And then Hanji stopped me today and told me that they and Erwin talk to their mice, as if they weren't weird enough already. Both of them freak me out." Eren sighs and lays back until his had is pillowed on Jean's lower back. "And now I'm talking to my doll. My doll that looks exactly like me."

When did his life get become this? He's simultaneously the most bored and the most entertained he's ever been in his life. Eren frowns.

"I need to get laid," he decides.

* * *

Jean wakes up just long enough to make and eat dinner before going back to sleep, and Levi brought work home for the weekend, so Eren has to entertain himself for the rest of the night. He spends most of the night in front of the TV, listening half-heartedly to a movie while he edits what he has so far of his novel.

Sometime around one in the morning, when his eyelids are so heavy he can hardly keep them open, he shuts his laptop with a snap and sighs heavily. He digs his fingers into his eyes harshly and stumbles to his feet. When he opens his eyes, he's greeted by the sight of a fat white rat staring up at him. He jolts and just barely manages not to punt the thing across the room.

Then comprehension dawns and his breath hitches, and he spins around to face the little door with wide eyes. The outline of the door jamb glows faintly purple through the wallpaper, and Eren walks towards it slowly, unsure of whether or not to open it.

There's a chance he might be dreaming again, but this feels so real that he begins to doubt he was even asleep the first time. And he can't forget the shock of seeing his boyfriends—or who he _thought_ was his boyfriends—greeting him with wide smiles and blank, lifeless button eyes. Jean was right when he said that button eyes are creepy as hell, but Eren doesn't think this is the context Jean was imagining.

In the end, curiosity and the memory of having someone actually pay attention to him drive him to his knees. He pulls open the door, glad he hadn't locked it after last time. If he'd had to go to the kitchen to get the key, he would've been hounded every step of the way by the fear that the glow would be gone when he returned.

He squints into a blast of sweet, stale air and watches as the tunnel expands. The rat comes up and squeaks at him as if in invitation, bounding into the tunnel immediately after. Eren abandons all of his misgivings and crawls into the tunnel.

This time he doesn't hesitate to walk into the kitchen when he emerges in that Other living room. Only Other Jean is alone, this time, chopping peppers at the counter.

"Hello," Eren says cautiously.

"Good morning," Other Jean says, looking up briefly to smile at Eren. He looks so much more relaxed than the real Jean; there aren't any bags under his button eyes and his face is free of the stress lines that sometimes appear before big tests and essays. "You look good today."

Eren has squinty, puffy eyes from staying up so late, is wearing his oldest, rattiest t-shirt and a baggy pair of sweatpants, and has a terrible case of bedhead thanks to running his hand through his hair so many times. He appreciates the compliment anyway.

"So do you," Eren says truthfully, coming up to to see what's cooking. "And so does this pizza. Are you going to put onions on it?"

"Yup," Other Jean says. "Onions, peppers, pepperoni, and mushrooms, just the way you like it."

Eren frowns lightly. "How do you know how I like my pizza?" he asks, bemused.

"Because I'm your boyfriend?" Other Jean replies. "Silly. It's my job to know these things. Anyway, could you go get Levi from the garden? The pizza will only take another few minutes."

Eren is confused as to why Other Levi would be in the garden, but he agrees nonetheless. He puts on his old, comfortable boots and walks out the backdoor and into the cool night air. He pauses on the porch to take a deep, contented breath. For once, the air isn't cold enough to hurt his nose when he breathes. In fact, it's warm enough out that he's not the only one outside; the crickets are out and singing, providing tranquil background music as he walks into the garden.

The yard and the garden are completely dead back home, save for a few gnarled, stubborn weeds that spring up here and there. It's always seemed like a huge waste to Eren, to waste such a perfect opportunity to have a kickass garden. The Others didn't waste their opportunity.

Their garden is an explosion of light and color and movement and life, and Eren's jaw drops when he sees it. Every flower bed and plot of land has something growing in it, from colorful, exotic flowers to simple green plants that attract giant, fuzzy moths and playful hummingbirds. Even the pond, so empty and dry back in the real world, is filled with clear water. Eren stands on the bridge and looks down, letting out a little delighted laugh when he sees the koi fish that are lazily swimming through the water.

"Like it?" asks a familiar voice, and Eren turns to see Other Levi coming towards him, a small, pleased smile on his face.

"It's incredible," Eren says honestly. "I don't think I've ever seen anything like it."

"We thought you'd enjoy it," Other Levi says, a pleased flush stealing over his face. Eren's never seen him so bashful before.

"You're really fucking adorable, you know that?" he blurts out before he can stop himself. Levi's flush deepens.

"You're not so bad yourself," he says, bumping his hip into Eren's. "Want to help me hang fairy lights?"

"I'd love to," Eren says. "Oh, but Other Jean actually sent me out here to tell you that the pizza's done."

"Perfect," Other Levi says. "I'm starving. Come on, let's go in before he comes out to get us."

They exchange knowing looks and then dissolve into laughter. They're still giggling when they walk into the kitchen through the back door, right as Other Jean is setting a steaming hot pizza down on the table.

"Nice timing," he says.

"It looks really good," Eren says, eyeing the pizza appreciatively.

"Go wash up before you eat, please," Other Jean says politely. Eren quickly scrubs his hands at the kitchen sink and then slides into the chair in between the Others. The pizza tastes just as good as it looks, Eren is pleased to note, so it seems Other Jean can cook just as well as the real Jean can.

After they eat, the Others encourage Eren to go get to know the neighbors, and Eren would be lying if he said he wasn't excited. He pulls on his ratty boots with some reluctance, missing the casual comfort of his Converse. The sounds of easy laughter and conversation float in from the kitchen, familiar yet not at the same time. The voices are the same but the inflections are completely new, and it's rare that Eren hears either Jean or Levi so relaxed and at ease.

He's smiling when he steps out onto the porch. The night is just as beautiful as it normally is, not a hint of fog anywhere as he walks down to Connie and Sasha's apartment. The fairy lights are still there, though the tacky rainbow has been replaced by a tasteful white that makes the railing appear as if it's glowing. He follows the trail of lights down the stairs and through the cracked door.

The apartment, so bright and inviting in the real world, is dark here. An air of excitement and anticipation makes the hair on Eren's arms stand up as he walks down the hallway, his footsteps muffled by thick red carpeting. A dark red curtain blocks the living room off from the hallway, and from behind it issues forth muffled circus music. Every horror movie Eren's ever seen comes rushing back into his memory all at once and his heartbeat speeds up with anxiety and fear, but he reasons that Other Levi and Other Jean wouldn't purposefully send him into danger.

The thought gives him enough courage to push aside the curtain and enter the room. His eyes widen in shock when he's greeted, not by Connie and Sasha's living room, but by an honest to god circus.

The ceiling stretches way, way up high, so high that he can't even see it. The walls are white and red striped canvas and the floor is packed dirt, and in the center of the room are three rings on the ground. Curved bleachers surround the rings, housing a writhing, howling audience made up of dogs. Hundreds of copies of Femur, Armor, and Collie.

There are two lone empty seats at the top of one of the sections of bleachers, and Eren makes his way up there cautiously. It's still dark, even with the four spotlights roving over the crowd like this is a rock concert, and he doesn't want to slip and break his neck before the show even begins.

He sits in one of the seats and looks at the empty one next to him, wondering who it's for. It's obvious that Connie and Sasha are going to be performing, and there's only one seat so it can't be for Hanji and Erwin, but he can't think of who else could br comung.

And then he spots a familiar blond head making its way over to him, and he can't help but grin.

"Hey," Other Armin says a little breathlessly. He, too, has button eyes, big blue ones that glitter in the low light. There are a few twigs sticking out of his hair, which is loose around his shoulders instead of in its usual ponytail. "Sorry I'm late. I got a little, uh, _sidetracked_ while taking a shortcut through the woods."

"Sidetracked?" Eren repeats, amused. "You mean you got stuck in a bush again."

Other Armin blushes, grumbles, and points to the rings.

"The show's starting," he says, and sure enough, the audience has gone quiet, as has the music. The spotlights stop their restless roving and fly up the walls, way, way, _way_ up high, to where Connie and Sasha are standing on platforms near the ceiling. Eren's jaw drops.

He can barely see them from where he's sitting, that's how high up they are, yet their movements are confident and show none of the terror Eren would be feeling. _Is_ feeling.

"Holy _shit_ ," he says, and Armin laughs.

"Just watch," he says.

"Ready to break a leg, Connie?" Other Sasha calls, her voice echoing loudly around the tent.

"Our lives for the Vine, Sasha," Connie calls back, his grin audible in his tone.

They both grip trapeze bars tightly in their hands, leaning back on their heels as far as the wire will allow them to go. And then, when the suspense is eating away at Eren's nerves like acid, they leap.

Eren's eyes are wide as he watches them, his breath gone. They're _majestic_ as they fly through the air, making it all look effortless as they flip and swing and hang suspended above that terrifying drop with not a care in the world. The spotlights catch on the glitter on their costumes, making them sparkle like gems. Their bright laughter bounces off the walls, infectious; Eren is smiling the entire time, gripping the edge of his seat in white-knuckled excitement.

All around him, the dogs are going crazy. The energy is almost palpable, leaving Eren's heart pounding against his ribs as if it's him up there instead of his neighbors. He exchanges an exhilarated smile with Other Armin.

And then, just when Eren feels as though he's about to burst from anticipation, Other Connie and Other Sasha let go of their bars. Eren gasps. They hang suspended in the air for longer than should be possible before they begin a graceful plummet to the ground, their arms stretched out in front of them like divers. Eren stands to get a better view, fear and anticipation singing through his blood. He flinches when they land, not in a heap of broken bones as he expected, but with hardly a splash in a barrel of water that shouldn't, by all means, be able to hold one of them, let alone both.

After a moment, they emerge with their arms outstretched and victorious grins on their faces, Sasha perched on Connie's hand effortlessly. The audience explodes with noise, barks and howls and, in the middle of it all, two pairs of hands clapping madly. Eren finds himself laughing helplessly, dizzy with relief and the aftereffects of adrenalin.

"That was insane!" he says.

"That was incredible!" Other Armin replies. "Come on, let's go down there."

They scramble down the bleachers, dodging wagging tails and curious noses. By the time they make it to the floor, Connie and Sasha have already exited their barrel and are bowing and waving to their dogs. They turn and grin widely at Other Armin and Eren when they approach. Eren sweeps Other Sasha into a hug and she laughs breathlessly.

"That was incredible, you guys!" he says.

Other Connie shrugs modestly, but there's a little pleased smile on his face. If he had real eyes, Eren's sure they'd be sparkling.

Other Sasha suddenly pulls back from him, her hands tight on his shoulders.

"Do you want to try?" she asks eagerly. And what can he do except agree?

* * *

He is still breathless and giggling when he stumbles with Other Armin up the stairs, his face flushed red from wind and excitement.

"That was the coolest thing I've ever done!" he says again. Other Armin just laughs at his glee and ruffles his hair.

"I know," he teases. "That's only, what? The fourteenth time you've said it?"

Eren sticks his tongue out at him, a childish move that normally gets him nothing but raised eyebrows or rolled eyes. Other Armin laughs at him again.

They part ways at the bottom of the porch stairs.

"Are you sure you'll be fine walking home alone?" Eren asks. "It's really dark out."

"I'll be fine," Other Armin says dismissively. "There's nothing dangerous in these woods, anyway."

"If you're sure," Eren says dubiously "I'll see you later, then."

Other Armin waves over his shoulder. Soon, he is swallowed up by the gloom of the night, and Eren sighs and turns to head inside. Movement in his periphery catches his attention, and he turns his head to see that same cream cat from before, in the other world. They stare at each other for a moment.

"You look like the cat from home," Eren says. The cat drops down into a long, luxurious stretch, sticking its rear way up in the air.

"What an astute observation," it says dryly, its voice undeniably female. Eren's mouth drops open for only a second before he remembers himself and snaps it shut again. "This may come as a shock to you, but I _am_ the same cat from home."

She hops up onto the porch railing and begins walking along it, and Eren follows curiously.

"You don't have button eyes," he says, "but if you're the same cat, how can you talk?"

At this, the cat stops and fixes him with its piercing blue gaze.

"I don't know," she says. "If you're so intelligent, how come you haven't run far away from this place yet?"

Eren frowns. "Why would I run away? This place is incredible!"

The cat lets out a trilling meow that might pass for a laugh. "You might think so," she says darkly. "But we cats know the truth. _They_ only want you to love this place."

"They?" Eren repeats blankly. "You mean the Others?"

"Is that what you call them?" the cat asks disinterestedly. "I heard tell that they go by a different name. A dangerous name."

A strong urge to defend the Others comes over him, and he snaps, "They're not dangerous. They're the best people I've met since I moved here." He slowly uncrosses his arms. "How do you know so much about it, anyway?"

"We have our sources," the cat says. "It's almost like a game we play, see. They hate cats and try to keep us out, but, of course, they can't. Not for long, anyway."

This doesn't match up with Eren's view of the Others, who he can't imagine hurting a fly. Plus, the Levi and Jean he left back home are both pretty fond of cats. _But,_ some little voice in the back of his head whispers, _they aren't the Others, are they? And isn't that the whole point?_

Uncomfortable now, Eren rubs at his bare arms to try and dispel the goosebumps that suddenly appeared there.

"I have to go now," he tells the cat. "Um. It was nice to meet you, I guess."

She simply gazes at him, her twitching tail the only thing marking her as a living creature. Shivers slip down Eren's back like ice cubes when he turns to go back inside. He pauses at the top of the stairs to look back at her, but she is gone.

He goes back inside.

* * *

This time he falls asleep in the bed with the Others, curled up in between them with a soft smile on his face. When he wakes, he's in the same exact spot and for a moment he thinks he somehow stayed in the Other world, but when he looks at Levi's face, there's no trace of the storm-grey buttons that he'd grown used to.

Eren sits up, careful not to disturb either of his boyfriends, and studies them. It's rare that he wakes up before them, since he likes sleeping in and they have responsibilities that require them to rise early. It's still dark out—the sun hasn't risen yet and the blinds are still closed, so the only light comes from the red glow of the digital clock and what little moonlight filters in from the windows outside the room, in the hallway.

It's sufficient light to see by, once his eyes adjust. Carefully, he reaches out and runs his fingertip over Levi's eyelid, a featherlight touch that makes his lashes flutter. Levi shifts and mumbles something unintelligible, and Eren feels his heart ache a little. God, he loves his idiots so much.

He sighs heavily, and on his other side Jean shifts.

"Eren?" he says, his voice husky with sleep. "What are you doing up so early?"

Eren lies back down and turns to face him, wrapping an arm around his waist and burying his face in Jean's hair.

"Nothing," he says. "I'm fine. Go back to sleep, Jean."

"Okay," Jean mumbles. His breathing evens out only seconds later. Eren lies there for a few more minutes before he gives up on trying to fall back asleep and carefully extracts himself from the bed. He's not going to be able to get back to sleep, so he might as well go do something productive. After putting on a pair of socks and grabbing Little Me from its place on the dresser, he makes his way downstairs.

Almost compulsively, he goes to the little door and checks to see what's behind it. He lets out a little disappointed noise at the sight of the bricks, but he's not that surprised. It seems the magic—or whatever it is—only works when Eren's alone, and it's too close to the time when his boyfriends get up for safety.

His phone has just enough battery to tell him the time before it dies. He finds a charger hidden in the depths of the junk drawer, and he plugs it in to charge while he cooks. While not quite up to par with Jean's skills in the kitchen, Eren is still a competent cook. He's definitely better than Levi is.

They have way too many eggs in the fridge and not much else, so Eren decides to go with simple French toast. He cracks half a carton of eggs into a bowl and throws in some cinnamon just for the hell of it, then goes scrounging through the pantry for the half a loaf of bread he knows is hidden somewhere in there.

While the pan heats up, he leans against the counter and whips the eggs with a fork and looks around the kitchen. There are no blinds or curtains on the windows so more lights streams in than was in the bedroom, but it's grey, watery light, filtering in through layers of clouds. He feels cold, even though the heat from the stove is pleasantly scorching against his lower back.

Jean and Levi stumble in just as he's transferring the last piece of toast from the pan to the plate. Well, Jean stumbles. Levi shuffles, his eyes half-closed, and comes to a stop against Eren's chest.

"You made breakfast," he mumbles into Eren's shirt.

"I did," Eren says. "And you _didn't_ get dressed, I notice."

"I took today off," Levi says. He rubs his forehead against Eren's chest, a plea for attention, and Eren rolls his eyes but reaches up to try and tame Levi's bedhead.

"You literally just started a new job," he says. "It hasn't even been a month."

"My boss was being annoying," Levi says. "Jean, go get me some coffee."

Jean, eloquent morning person that he is, whines in protest, but bumps his knee on the underside of the table getting up, and almost closes the cabinet door on his hand when getting the instant coffee out. Eren snorts.

"What's up with you two today?" he asks. "You're both normally a lot more awake by now."

"Eren, shut up and give me toast," Levi mumbles.

"Sir, yes sir," Eren says, steering Levi into a chair. He plops the plate of French toast down in front of him, snagging a piece for himself as he does so. "But seriously," he says with his mouth full. "What're you guys doing?"

"Levi took today off and I don't have any classes, so we thought we'd hang out with you," Jean says, rubbing at his eyes. "And anyway, don't we have to get ready for that potluck thing this weekend?"

"I volunteered you to make brownies," Eren says. "And I may have also gone back and promised them carrot cake."

"You better learn how to make a carrot cake, then," Jean says, even though they both know there's no way he'd ever let Eren attempt to bake. Again.

Eren eats with his feet in Jean's lap and his head on Levi's shoulder, and afterwards they all get dressed and go out to—finally—explore the forest. He has to admit, he's excited. There are actually a lot of really cool things in the woods, plants that don't grow in California and birds that aren't seagulls. He also notices, distantly, as they walk hand in hand in hand, that the forest seems to mirror the Other world exactly. Or maybe the Other world mirrors this one?

"I have to admit," Jean says, arms sticking out as he tries to balance on a fallen, half-rotted tree, "that this is pretty cool."

Eren smiles. "I told you guys," he says. "We don't have forests like this in California."

"Um, yes we do, you dumb coast baby," Levi says. "Have you never heard of Yosemite? Or inland California?"

He has his fingers firmly entwined with Eren's and is glaring at the ground—which is admittedly kind of damp—as if it has personally offended him. Unlike Jean, they haven't strayed from the rough, rudimentary path that cuts through the trees, even though Eren wants to. He squeezes Levi's hand.

"Thanks for coming, Lee," he says softly. "It actually means a lot."

Levi looks up at him and his gaze softens noticeably.

"Anything for you," he murmurs. "But if you ever fucking call me Lee again, I'm going to tell Jean that your mother used to call you Er-Bear."

Eren knows Levi will carry out the threat, if he feels he has to, but he just laughs, almost giddy with happiness.

"Why is this mushroom so fucking _big_?" Jean says loudly from somewhere in front of them.

"Jean, don't touch it," Levi calls.

"Yes, thank you, mother," Jean calls back sarcastically.

"I swear, it's like fucking raising a child," Levi mutters. Eren presses a kiss to the top of his head.

"Considering we've all had sex together in the past, I'd really hope you don't actually see us as children," he whispers. Levi kicks him in the shin.

* * *

On Saturday morning, Eren greets Mikasa at the door. He leads her to the kitchen, where Jean is covering a huge plate of brownies and a container of carrot cupcakes with seran wrap. As they try, unsuccessfully, to snatch a brownie while he is distracted, Levi comes in, scowling.

"I'm not going," he announces as he finishes rolling up the sleeves of his shirt.

"Yes, you are," Jean says, slapping Eren's hand away from the plate of brownies yet again. "We need to be sociable with the neighbors."

"Easy for you to say, you goddamn extrovert," Levu grumbles. Jean just smiles serenely at him.

"Come on, Levi," Eren says. "If I have to go, then you have to go. Besides, it'll be fine. There's only, like, ten people coming, if that."

"Hmm," Levi says, unconvinced. Mikasa calmly reaches out and takes a brownie. Eren is outraged.

"Why didn't you slap her?" he demands.

"Because I value having my dick attached to my body," Jean says. "In case you haven't noticed, Mikasa is fucking terrifying."

Mikasa takes a bite of her brownie.

"Let's just go," Eren says, disgusted.

* * *

Mikasa is dressed in a flowy navy blue dress and a pair of black heels and her ever present red scarf, a dramatic change from the jeans, boots, and leather jacket she normally wears, so Eren is completely understanding when Sasha's mouth drops. Luckily, Connie is standing right next to her, and he nudges her with his elbow before Mikasa can turn around and see them.

Eren smirks and, after a quick hug from Sasha and a slap on the back from Connie, drags his boyfriends away, leaving a thoroughly confused Mikasa behind.

Hanji and Erwin are ecstatic to see them again (or maybe Hanji is ecstatic to see Jean's brownies). Eren politely asks about the mouse army, which sets Levi off on a tirade about the rat they found in their apartment. Eren and Jean spot a blond head somewhere in the distance and escape towards it.

They sit with Armin for a while, nursing beers and conspiratorially making up ridiculous theories about completely ordinary things. There's more alcohol this time than there was before, and in between sips of his Rum and Coke Eren wonders if it's a good idea to have so much alcohol near the open flame of the grill.

It doesn't take long for most of the neighbors to get drunk, but Eren stops once he's pleasantly buzzed. The thought of getting drunk and potentially doing something embarrassing in front of his weird neighbors is not attractive at all. He looks over at Mikasa and is surprised to find her talking to Sasha, a small smile on her face as she listens to whatever the other girl is talking about. Connie, hovering nearby, catches Eren's eye and shoots him a thumbs up.

"Hey," Eren says, nudging Jean. "Look at Mikasa."

Jean scans the garden until he spots her, blinking in shock when he sees her with Sasha. Eren watches the grin spread across his face.

"Oh my god, she's blushing," Jean says, laughing with delight. "I'm never letting her live this down!"

"At least wait to see if one of them asks the other out before you start up with the church bells," Eren says, smiling.

"Are you kidding?" Jean says. "Do you know how much she teased me about my crush on you and Levi? She wrote 'Jean Kirschtein-Jaeger-Ackerman' on every notebook I owned, in permanent marker."

"Wait, notebook?" Eren asks, and Jean blushes. A wide grin spreads across his face. "You had a crush on us when you were in high school? That's so cute." He laughs when Jean elbows him in the side, scowling.

"I don't know why I put up with you," he grumbles half-heartedly, crossing his arms over his chest but leaning into the arm Eren slings around his waist.

"It's because you love me," Eren says, nuzzling into the shaved hairs at the base of his neck. "And also because I proofread your essays."

"Yeah, whatever," Jean says. "Can you go get me something to drink?"

"Jean, you're half drunk already," Eren says. "You don't need more alcohol."

"Then go get me some juice or something." Jean pouts, giving Eren his best puppy dog eyes. Eren rolls his eyes but gets up off the low stone wall he was sitting on.

"Fine," he says. "But only because you're pathetic."

He's still smiling as he makes his way over to the table where the food is. Next to it is a table full of tall glass bottles that Eren looks at longingly for a moment, but he's already resolved not to get drunk, so he grabs two cans of Coke from the cooler on the ground. He cracks one open and takes a sip as Connie comes over to him.

"Eren!" he exclaims, happily and drunkenly. Something is clutched tightly in his fist, and he presses it into Eren's hand. "Here. I found this underneath my bed the other day and it reminded me of your eye. Your green one."

Eren raises an eyebrow and looks down at his hand.

"Huh," he says.

"I know. Weird, right?" Connie says.

It _is_ weird. The stone is large-ish, fitting snugly in the palm of his hand, and is a strangely perfect triangular shape. The edges are smooth and rounded, but the circular hole in the center of the stone has jagged, rough edges, as if the hole was cut inexpertly or gouged out of the stone.

"What is it for?" Eren asks. Connie shrugs.

"I don't know," he says. "But it's cool, right?"

"Yeah," Eren lies. Connie grins and bounces away. If Eren were smart, he'd take the opportunity to throw the rock away while no one is looking, but he doesn't. There's something strangely calming about having it in his hand and feeling the smooth, cool surface under his fingertips. He's so focused on studying the stone that he doesn't notice Levi until he turns around and bumps into him. Eren's Coke splashes all down Levi's shirt.

"Whoops," Eren says.

"Seriously?" Levi snaps. He looks at his shirt disgustedly, holding the soaking fabric away from his skin. "Goddammit, Eren, watch where the fuck you're going."

"Jeez, sorry," Eren says, a little hurt by Levi's anger. "It was an accident, and it's not that big a deal anyway. The house is literally right there. You can just go change your shirt."

"That's not the point, Eren," Levi growls. "My shirt is fucking white!"

"It's not like you don't have a million other white shirts," Eren points out, irritated.

Levi ignores him. "Why do you have to be such a klutz?" he mutters, half to himself, but Eren hears him anyway.

"Why do you have to be so damn neurotic about messes?" he snaps back. "The Other Levi isn't such a clean freak."

"The Other Levi?" Levi repeats, narrowing his eyes in confusion. Then he blinks. "You mean the one with button eyes that you dreamt about the other night?" he asks incredulously, hurt clear in his tone. "He's a figment of your imagination, Eren! But if I'm so fucking neurotic, you're more than welcome to leave me and go fuck yourself."

He storms off towards the house, fuming, and Eren watches him go with his hands clenched into fists. Jean, who's heading towards Eren, has to swerve to avoid running into Levi.

"What happened?" Jean asks, coming to stand next to Eren. "He looked really mad."

"I spilled Coke on him by accident, and then he freaked out and stormed off," Eren huffs angrily. "Just 'cause I called him neurotic about messes doesn't mean he has to act so irritated."

"Are you kidding, Eren?" Jean says. "You called him neurotic?"

"Well, it's true," Eren says.

"He has OCD!" Jean exclaims, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Jesus, if I were him, I would've punched you in the dick. You're lucky he has such good control over his anger."

"Good control? He was practically steaming," Eren says.

"Gee, I wonder why," Jean says sarcastically. "Eren, we love you, but you can be such an insensitive prick sometimes."

He sighs harshly and grabs the unopened can of Coke from the table, then starts heading towards the house.

"Where are you going?" Eren calls after him.

"To go comfort our slightly drunk boyfriend, even though I'm slightly drunk myself, because you're being a jerk," Jean snaps. He stalks off without another word. Eren fumes silently and watches him go until he turns the corner and disappears, and then he heads back into the main part of the garden.


	3. Chapter 3

" **Coraline stopped and listened. She knew she was doing something wrong, and she was trying to listen for her mother coming back, but she heard nothing. Then Coraline put her hand on the doorknob and turned it; and, finally, she opened the door."**

— **Neil Gaiman**

* * *

It's late by the time Eren returns to the house, Mikasa in tow. She has no idea what happened between Eren and his boyfriends—except for what Eren told her, which is that Eren spilled soda on Levi and he and Jean used it as an excuse to leave early—so when they get inside, she heads immediately for the guest room, instead of hovering awkwardly around the kitchen like Eren does.

He's no longer buzzed, having stuffed himself with food and water after Jean and Levi left, but he is remorseful. It took a while, but eventually the guilt had slammed into him, nearly making him choke on his hamburger. The longer he thought about it, the longer he realized that what Jean said is true; he's acting like an enormous jerk.

His plan was to wait until Mikasa retires for the night and then head up to his own bedroom to make amends with Jean and Levi, but all that is thrown right out of the window when he walks into the kitchen. They're in there, Levi sitting on the counter and Jean leaning backwards against the granite between Levi's legs, and they both watch him guardedly as he comes in. The guilt makes a reappearance.

"Hi," he says softly.

Levi pointedly takes a sip from his mug, so Jean offers a small, "Hey." He doesn't sound angry, only disappointed, which is so much worse than the anger since it's so much more rare. Eren hesitates. He hates apologizing, but not because he has any delusions about always being right. It's because it's just so _awkward._ To just go up to someone as apologize, with no precedent and no lead-in, doesn't make sense to him, who's used to the gradual introductions of a novel or essay.

Levi watches him flounder for a moment, offering nothing in his expression.

"Eren?" Jean says.

"You were right," Eren blurts out. "About me being a jerk. You were right, and I'm sorry."

Jean let's out an exasperated sigh. "I'm not the one you need to be talking to," he says. He takes his mug and leaves the kitchen, letting his shoulder gently bump into Eren's as he passes. As his footsteps slowly fade, Eren and Levi simply stare at each other.

"Levi," Eren starts, but Levi cuts him off.

"I know it's annoying," he says, "okay? The cleaning and the organization and the flicking the light switch on and off fifty times. You don't think that bothers me, too? But what happened out there had nothing to do with that. You dumped soda on me, Eren."

His voice is steely by the end and Eren squirms under his icy gaze.

"I know, and I'm sorry," he whispers. "I never should have brought that up and I shouldn't have called you neurotic like an insult. I'm really sorry, Levi."

He looks up mournfully, trying to express his remorse through his gaze alone. To his frustration, he feels angry tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. Levi scoffs and looks away, but he gaze softens.

"Come here," he says, reaching out with one hand. Eren goes to him instantly and wraps his arms around Levi's waist, burying his face in his (new, clean) sweater. "You idiot," Levi says fondly. "Don't fucking do that again."

"I won't, Eren promises. "I'm sorry."

He breathes in the familiar scent of the soap that Levi prefers, a subtle coconut smell that reminds him of long, hot days spent at the beach. His hands unclench themselves and he feels the tension melt out of his shoulders. He hadn't realized just how much he hates having his boyfriends mad at him.

"Do you want to go upstairs?" Levi asks a few minutes later. His hand found its way to Eren's head at some point, his long, thin fingers running carefully through Eren's hair and practically making him purr with contentment. "You need to shower."

"Are you saying I stink?" Eren asks playfully.

"Yes," Levi deadpans. "Like barbecued meat and smoke." Eren sighs.

"Can't argue with that," he says. He pulls back and offers a hand to Levi, who takes it and keeps hold of it as they go upstairs, a rare moment of innocent affection that he doesn't often indulge in.

They find Mikasa and Jean sitting cross-legged on the bed in the master bedroom, whispering with their heads bent low together.

"Levi, they're conspiring," Eren says. "Jean's going to leave us to go live a life of espionage and intrigue with your cousin."

"Eren, for the last time, I'm not a spy," Mikasa says exasperatedly.

"That's what a spy is trained to say," Eren replies. "But seriously, what's up?"

To his shock, Mikasa's cheeks turn pink.

"Sasha asked her out," Jean announced delightedly.

Eren is smug as he pulls clean clothes out of his dresser. "Did you say yes?" he asks.

"Of course," Mikasa says. "You know how much I love brown eyes."

Eren's smug smile turns soft, and he gently tugs at her scarf as he passes by on his way to he bathroom. "That's cute," he says. "Don't scare this one off, okay? She's my neighbor."

Mikasa pushes him towards the door. "Go take a shower," she says. He laughs, and does.

* * *

After the four of them nearly fall asleep on the couch in front of a movie later that night, they unanimously agree to go to bed. Snuggled in between his boyfriends, with Mikasa asleep in the other room, Eren has never been more comfortable.

He sleeps through the night, with no surprise visits to secret worlds.

* * *

He wakes up first again, for some strange, inconceivable reason. This time he doesn't even try to go back to sleep, recognizing a futile effort when he encounters one. Anticipation and restlessness thrum through his veins, lending him an unusual energy as he grabs Little Me and heads downstairs.

He makes a large pot of coffee, knowing Levi and Jean will probably want some when they wake up, and once it's done he takes his mug and heads into the living room. The little door is there, protruding slightly from the wall tantalizingly, and Eren stares at it for a moment before setting down the coffee and the doll and going to open it.

It doesn't open when he pulls at it and he frowns, thinking it might be stuck, but even after he manages to wiggle the door a bit in the door jamb, it refuses to budge. _It's locked_ , he realizes. The restlessness running throughout his body spikes into anxiety.

He dashes to the kitchen and rummages through the drawer of keys that came with the house. The key that unlocks the little door, the big hideous brass one, is missing.

"What the hell," Eren hisses angrily. He runs back upstairs, not caring about how much noise he's making or that he might wake up Mikasa. He bursts into his bedroom and launches himself onto the bed. Levi jolts awake instantly while Jean groans in protest and pulls a pillow over his head.

"Eren," Levi growls, glancing at the clock on the bedside table. "It's six in the goddamn morning. There better be a fucking phenomenal reason why you decided to wake me up so violently."

"That little door in the living room," Eren says. Levi flops back down onto his pillow.

"What about it?" he grumbles.

"It's locked."

"Yes, it is."

"Why?" Eren demands.

"Because I found rat shit in my kitchen and a hole in the bricks behind the door," Jean says, his voice muffled. "In my fucking kitchen, Eren!"

"They wouldn't have taken any of the food or anything," Eren says, feeling defensive on the rats' behalf. Anything that leads him to a place like the Other world can't be all that bad, can it?

Levi looks at him curiously. "Who wouldn't have taken anything?" he asks.

"The rats," Eren says.

"Seriously? Eren, they're _rats_ ," Levi says. "That's all they do."

"Well, if all they did was shit on the floor," Eren starts. "They didn't steal any food, did they?"

Jean finally sits up angrily, pulling the pillow off his head and flinging it at Eren's.

"Why are you defending rats at _six in the morning_?" he hisses. "Rats carry diseases, Eren. If you want to walk all over a disease infested floor and then bring that into our bed, be my guest, but don't complain to me when you get an STD or something."

"I'm telling you, I don't think they're diseased," Eren says, anger boiling low in his belly. "In fact, I know they aren't."

"And how would you know that?" Levi asks, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

Eren grinds his teeth. "Call it a hunch," he says. Jean groans loudly and tries to kick him off the bed.

"Eren, for God's sake," he snaps. "Can you shut the fuck up? I'm trying to sleep."

"Fine," Eren says. "Just give me the key and I'll leave."

"No way, you maniac," Jean says. "You're just going to go open the door and let the rats in."

"You do have some kind of rat fetish or something, Eren," Levi says. "I don't think it's healthy." He pulls the blanket up over his shoulder, dislodging Eren. He tumbles to the floor and lands heavily on his back, and for a moment he's so shocked and furious that all he can do is lie there and stare at the ceiling.

A moment passes. " _Seriously?_ "

"Eren, go away," Levi snaps. Eren crawls back onto the bed and yanks the blankets down. "Eren, for fuck's sake!"

"I have just as much right to that key as you losers," Eren seethes. "Why can't I have the door open if I want?"

"Why the hell are you so obsessed with that door?" Levi asks.

"Remember that dream he had?" Jean says. "The one where we had button eyes?"

Levi pinches the bridge of his nose. "Eren, please tell me that's not why you're so insistent on having the door open."

"Why the fuck does it matter?" Eren shouts, more pissed that they're not taking this seriously than he is that they're withholding the key in the first place. "If I want the door open, I should be able to have the fucking door open!"

"Eren, you asshole," Jean snaps. "You're not the only one who lives here. Those rats are putting our health in danger and I'm not going to risk getting diseases just to satisfy whatever delusions you have about that door!"

Eren clenches his fist and tries very hard not to punch Jean in the face. A door slams shut somewhere in the house, and Eren thinks, distantly, that Mikasa must have gotten fed up with their fighting and left.

"You know what," Eren says. "Fuck you."

"Wasn't it the other way around, last time?" Jean sneers, his temper finally at its limit. Eren is glad. If he and Jean get into a physical fight, as they used to do a lot, at least Eren will have an outlet for his anger. But Jean simply growls angrily and yanks the blanket back up, pulling it over his head. Levi sighs.

"I hope you're both happy," he says. "This was the least productive fight you've ever had."

"We wouldn't have had to fight if you'd just given me the key," Eren snarks.

"Eren, you're not helping," Levi says. "Just… go make breakfast, or something. And don't go looking for that stupid key."

Eren's blood boils—nothing irritates him more than being treated like a child—but he doesn't respond to Levi, instead stomping out of the room and down the stairs. He grabs Little Me and his laptop from the kitchen and then goes to lock himself in the living room, making sure to slam the door as hard as he can.

That hideous painting above the fireplace wobbles but doesn't fall, much to Eren's annoyance. Anger still courses through him, makes him clench and unclench his fists as he stands in the middle of the room and tries not to scream, and suddenly he wants nothing more than to be with his boyfriends. He wants Levi to cuddle with him and Jean to stop being such a jerk, except when he imagines the scene in his head—the three of them would be curled up on the couch in front of the fire, Levi with a book and Jean with his sketchpad—when he imagines that, it's not grey and gold eyes that look lovingly at him, but grey and gold buttons.

Longing hits him like a punch to the gut, and he stares at the little door as if the force of his want will be enough to trigger whatever magic powers it. After a few moments he growls in frustration and throws himself onto the couch. A fresh Word document greets him when he opens his laptop, and for the first time in a long time, he aligns his hands with the keyboard and writes.

He's not sure how long he sits there, muttering to himself as his fingers fly across the keys, but when he comes back to himself the document is just over five pages long. He scrolls up to the top, a kind of numb surprise coming over him as his eyes skim over what he wrote.

 _They're such fucking assholes_ is how it starts, only to shift into _and Other Jean would never fucking treat me like this_ closer to the end. Eren, feeling sick to his stomach, deletes the document and then deletes it permanently from his trash folder. He closes his laptop and sets it aside, then presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. His stomach makes an angry gurgling noise but he can't tell if it's from hunger or nausea because of the guilt.

Once again, he walks into the kitchen and finds Levi and Jean already there, sitting at the table with breakfast in front of them.

"Jean made pancakes," Levi says without looking away from his tea. Jean glares at Eren, as if daring him to fix himself a plate, so it's with some small amount of vindictive pleasure that Eren piles three pancakes onto a plate and drowns them in maple syrup. He eats leaning against the counter instead of sitting at the table with them. Levi doesn't look at him at all, but Jean shoots him a little glare every few seconds, as if reassuring himself that Eren's still there, eating the food he made.

"This morning was really dumb," Eren offers after a few minutes of awkward silence. "Like, one of the dumbest fights we've ever had."

"You woke me up at six in the morning on a _Sunday_ ," Jean says. "That's got to be blasphemy or something."

"You annoyed my cousin so much that she just got up and left the house," Levi adds.

"And you kicked me off the bed," Eren says. "Like, physically kicked me off. I might have a bruise on my ass."

They all stare at each other for a moment.

In unison, they sigh and say, "Sorry."

"That was gross," Eren says. "It wasn't even that big a deal."

"It really wasn't," Jean agrees. "Like, you were probably more upset that we tried to tell you what to do than you were about the door being locked."

That's not actually true, but Eren doesn't want to spark another argument so he keeps his mouth shut.

"Let's not talk about that stupid door for now," Levi says. "It's staying closed and that's that. Okay? Eren?"

Eren rolls his eyes. "Yeah, whatever," he says. Levi narrows his eyes.

"Eren, promise me you won't open the fucking door," he says.

"Scouts honor," Eren says, putting his hand over his heart.

"As if you were ever a Boy Scout," Jean mutters.

"And how would you know?" Eren asks, crossing his arms.

"No, stop that right now," Levi says. "Jesus Christ, can we not go two minutes without getting into an argument about something dumb?"

Jean sighs and rubs at his eyes tiredly. "We need to get out of this fucking house," he says. "Being trapped in here all day is making me go insane."

"That's what I've been saying ever since we first got here!" Eren says.

"So let's go out and do something, then," Levi says.

"Like a date?" Jean asks.

Levi shrugs. His expression never changes, but Eren can tell he's embarrassed.

"We haven't been on a date in forever," Jean sighs.

"You know what, that's a great idea," Eren says. "You guys should go see a movie or something."

Jean and Levi exchange surprised looks. "You aren't going to come with us?" Jean asks.

"I think it'd be best for all of us if we spent a few hours apart," Eren says. "We've all been really high strung lately and I don't think spending more time together will help prevent more arguments."

"Eren, you hate missing out," Levi says suspiciously. Eren mentally groans and decides he'll have to kick it up a notch with the persuasion.

"Well," he purrs, letting his eyelids lower halfway. He leans forward so that his forearms are braced against the back of Levi's chair and nuzzles just behind Levi's ear. "You can just… make it up to me when you get back."

Levi shivers and mutters something that sounds like "fucking teenage libido" as he turns around in his seat. He presses a kiss to the tip of Eren's nose.

"Jean?" he says, even as he studies Eren's face.

"I mean, if Eren wants to stay home while we go out, who are we to tell him not to?" Jean says. Eren winks at him over the top of Levi's head, and laughs when his cheeks turn faintly pink.

"So go shower and get ready, then, and I'll look up movie times or something," Eren says. Levi looks at Jean, who shrugs in response.

"We might as well," he says. "Come on, I'll give you a handjob in the shower, if you want."

"Yeah, okay," Levi sighs. He presses another kiss to Eren's lips. "Don't go overboard, okay? We're trusting you with this, Eren."

"Sir, yes, sir," Eren says. He watches Levi and Jean leave with a small frown on his face, the only outward sign of the turmoil in his mind. He faces a decision, but he's never really been good at those because of how driven by emotions he is. But whatever, he'll cross that bridge when he comes to it.

He goes into the living room and opens his laptop to start searching for nearby restaurants. Little Me watches with its mismatched button eyes while he make reservations, and he grimaces and turns it around so it's staring at the wall instead of at him.

An hour or two later, Jean and Levi are showered and ready to go. Eren sees them off at the front door, feeling like a single mom as he tries to get them out the door while telling them what they're doing.

"And the cab will be at the restaurant by two to take you to the movie theater so don't take too long eating," he says, shoving coats and gloves and scarves onto body parts at random. "The movie got pretty good reviews but I've never seen it, so you'll have to tell me how it was."

"Eren, oh my god, enough already," Jean says. "We're not actually incompetent."

"Well, I know Levi isn't," Eren retorts. " _You_ aren't even legal to drink yet, so forgive me for having doubts."

Levi's hand darts out and grabs Eren's collar, dragging his face down so they're eye to eye.

"Eren," he says. "Calm down. We know how a date works."

"Yeah, we'll call you if there are any problems," Jean adds. He grabs Levi's hand and pulls him out the door. "Try not to burn down the house while we're gone."

"No promises," Eren says, smiling cheekily. "Have fun! Piss off a homophobe for me, okay?"

"No," Levi says firmly, but Jean looks at Eren over his head and mouths 'Yes'. Eren's smiling as they walk to the cab but it drops off his face as soon as he closes the door. He leans against the wall and lets out a huge sigh, then bites his lip as he considers his options. Little Me watches him from where it's propped up against the wall, perched on top of an umbrella in the umbrella stand.

"Should I?" he asks it. Little Me doesn't respond, of course, because dolls can't speak, but Eren's a little disappointed nonetheless. He has to remind himself that whatever magic powers the door doesn't actually affect every aspect of his life. Still, that disappointment helps him make up his mind, at least. He nods once to himself. "I should," he says.

He strides purposefully up the stairs and into his bedroom, where he pauses in the doorway and quickly surveys the room.

"If I were Jean and Levi and needed to hide something," he mutters to himself, "where would I put it?"

His eyes land on the little table sitting innocently next to the side of the bed where Levi always sleeps. Neither Jean nor Eren are allowed to go through the drawer in the bedside table, and all Levi says about it when asked is that he keeps important legal documents in there, which is enough of a deterrent for Jean and Eren that they never willingly look through the drawer's contents. Until now, that is.

Eren can't help but to look over his shoulder at the door as he opens the drawer, feeling like a child doing something he knows he'll be punished for later. Once he's sure that he really is alone in the house, he turns his attention to the drawer. It seems Levi wasn't lying about the legal documents. Eren shifts through birth certificates, passports, immunization records, and more finance-related, jargon-filled papers than he ever wanted to see in his life. At the very bottom of the drawer, though, hidden underneath what feels like pounds of paper, he finds the key. Hideous as it normally is, right now it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

He carefully pulls the key out and closes the drawer, then heads back to the living room. The door's never worked in the daytime before, but he's also never tried to open it while Levi and Jean were out of the house completely. When he turns the key in the lock, it opens with a loud, ominous click, and anticipation makes Eren's heartbeat speed up.

He opens the door, and gasps a little in surprise at the blast of sweet, stale air that blows his messy hair away from his face. The tunnel unfurls slower than normal, as if welcoming him back after so long an absence. Eren barely waits for the door at the other end to open before he crawls into the tunnel, closing the door firmly behind him. He doesn't want to leave the key behind in case his boyfriends get home before he does and accidentally lock him in the Other world, so he brings it with him, zipping it up into the inner pocket of his jacket.

This time, Other Jean and Other Levi are waiting for him when he exits the tunnel. The sofa has been replaced with a large grand piano on wheels, which Other Levi is sitting at and which Other Jean is sitting _on_.

"Um," Eren says as he gets to his feet. "What's going on?"

"We found our old piano!" Other Levi says, smiling happily. He plays a simple string of notes that Other Jean mimics with his voice, and Eren grins.

"I knew Jean could sing, but I didn't know you could play the piano," he tells Other Levi. He looks at Other Jean, who shrugs and leans back on his palms.

"I learned a long time ago," Other Levi says. "We figured we'd write you a song, but you came a little earlier than we expected."

"Well, we have the instrumentals down," Other Jean says, a little shyly. "I could make something up for the lyrics."

Other Levi laughs and places his hands on the black and white keys, playing a trilling, upbeat melody, and Other Jean only has time to take a breath before he starts singing.

 _Making up a song about our love_

 _He's a stud, he's a doll, he's so good to us_

 _He's as cute as a button in the eyes of everyone_

 _Who ever laid their eyes on our love_

 _When he comes around exploring_

 _We'll make sure it's never, ever, ever boring_

 _Our eyes will be on our love_

They end the song with a flourish, Other Jean with his hand outstretched towards Eren and Other Levi with a few well-timed head bangs. Eren laughs in delight and takes Other Jean's hand, letting himself be pulled up onto the piano.

"That was awesome!" he says. "No one's ever written a song about me before."

"Well, No One is missing out," Other Levi says with a wink. Eren couldn't fight off his smile if he wanted to.

"So," he says. "Anything on the agenda for today?"

"Well, actually, yeah," Other Levi says. "The neighbors are having a barbecue and we're invited."

"That is, if you want to go," Other Jean interjects.

"Yeah, it sounds fun," Eren says. "Do we need to bring anything? Like food or drinks?"

"Jean already made cupcakes and brownies, so we're good for now," Other Levi says. He checks his watch. "And actually, we should be going now if we want to make it on time."

"Whatever happened to being fashionably late?" Eren teases as he follows them out of the room. It's not his boots waiting for him by the front door, for once, but his navy blue Converse. They kind of clash horribly with his shirt, but he puts them on anyway. They look better than the boots would have, in any case.

Even though it was late morning when Eren left his world, in the Other world it's clearly night. The moon is out, full and almost abnormally bright. It bathes everything in a silvery hue that adds an ethereal atmosphere to the whole yard. Between that and the cricket song permeating the air, he feels almost like a character in the fantasy novels he writes.

Predictably, the garden looks better here than it did in his world. Other Levi must have eventually gotten around to hanging up those fairy lights; strands of them are everywhere, draped over the low walls, wound around tree trunks and draped among the leaves, even suspended over the koi pond.

There's music out here, too, some classical piano piece playing from little black speakers spread throughout the garden. It's not what Eren would prefer to listen to, but he can't deny that it adds a sophisticated ambience to the whole thing that was lacking at the first potluck he attended.

He helps Other Jean carry the brownies and cupcakes to a table that's practically overflowing with food. Right next to it is another table, this one covered in various drinks, and Eren grabs a beer, vows to come back for some food, and goes to mingle.

People are spread out across the entire garden. Eren spots Other Connie over on the bridge, talking to Other Armin, while Other Sasha and Other Erwin laugh together near the greenhouse. Unlike last time, Other Levi doesn't immediately leave them to their own devices, so Eren and his two Other boyfriends are together when Other Hanji comes up to them.

The first thing that Eren notices about this Hanji is that they don't have that same manic energy that Eren noticed in the other Hanji. Their ponytail is neat and their brown button eyes don't have the same bags underneath them that the first Hanji's did.

"It's so good to see you again, Eren!" Other Hanji says, sticking out their hand for Eren to shake.

"Uh, you, too," Eren says, even though he's never met this Hanji before. He looks to Other Jean and Other Levi for help, but they just smile at him.

"So, are you excited for the show?" Other Hanji asks.

"What show?" Eren asks. Other Hanji laughs a little, like Eren's just told a joke, and his confusion increases.

"The mouse show," they say. "What else? Erwin and I are putting on a performance with our mouse army."

"Oh," Eren says. His first thought is about how bad this is going to be, but then he remembers Connie and Sasha's circus act and a genuine smile spreads across his face. "Oh! Yeah, that sounds fun! I can't wait."

Other Hanji beams at him and waves to Other Levi and Other Jean before going to join Other Erwin.

"Do you want anything to eat or drink?" Other Jean asks. "I can go get you something."

"Um, I was just about to go get myself a brownie," Eren says.

"I can get it for you," Other Jean says with a smile.

"Are you sure? You don't have to," Eren says.

"I want to," Other Jean replies. Eren watches him go with a small frown on his face.

"He's so… polite and helpful," he says to Other Levi.

"I know," Other Levi says with a besotted smile on his face. "Isn't he great?"

"Yeah," Eren says. "Great."

He feels a little off tonight; there's a sense of foreboding hanging over everything that makes his skin crawl, but he soon forgets all about it. The inhabitants of the Hunter's House in the Other world are a lot easier to talk to than the neighbors on the other side of the door, and Eren finds himself losing track of the time just talking and laughing with them. They're still his weird neighbors, but their weirdness is more eccentric than disturbing, and it helps that no matter what he does, they never give him the judgemental looks that Levi and Jean usually give him (or that he usually gives to his neighbors).

They're already preparing for the autumn holidays here. Other Connie and Other Sasha show him the tiny pumpkin sprouts growing in the greenhouse ("Sasha's the pumpkin mom," Other Connie stage whispers to him, "because her head is hollow like a pumpkin."). Other Erwin, whose icy button eyes are less disconcerting than Erwin's eyes, tells him that he occasionally feeds his mice crickets as a treat.

"But don't tell Hanji," he says immediately afterwards. If he could wink, Eren's sure he would. "The mice are supposed to be on a diet."

Eren does not care about the mice's diet, but he promises to keep Other Erwin's secret anyway.

The moon—which Eren's pretty sure is supposed to be a crescent, actually, instead of a full disk— is high in the sky by the time Other Erwin and Other Hanji decide to start their performance. Eren's a little tipsy by this point and he leans his head on Other Jean's shoulder as everyone assembles on the bridge. He can't stop smiling.

Other Erwin and other Hanji are seated on the bridge's railings by the time everyone's settled, one of them on each side of the bridge. It's kind of a tight squeeze for everyone to fit, but it's not so bad since not everyone is facing the same way.

Other Hanji stands up, balancing on the railing as easily as they balanced on the ground, and Other Erwin mimics them on the other side.

"Ready, Erwin?" Other Hanji asks.

"Ready, Hanji," Other Erwin says.

They pause, presumably for dramatic effect, before grinning at each other over everyone's heads and unzipping their green jackets.

"Holy shit," Eren says.

Dozens of white mice spill out like a tidal wave, pouring out onto the bridge and scurrying around and across feet as they hurry to take their positions. In only a few seconds, all the mice are in place. Eren stares at them in shock, not because they're standing military straight on their back paws, but because each mouse is wearing a tiny green cloak with the same wings that are printed on Eren's favourite jacket. The same jacket, he notices, that Other Erwin and Other Hanji are wearing.

"They're wearing my jacket," he says to Other Jean.

"What?" Other Jean says. "Oh, you mean the pattern. Well, Connie and Sasha really liked the way the wings looked when you wore the jacket last time you came. They must have told Erwin and Hanji about it." He looks down at Eren, a little worried wrinkle appearing between his button eyes. "I hope you don't mind."

"Oh," Eren says. "I don't even remember wearing that. And no, I don't mind. Imitation _is_ the highest form of flattery, after all."

Other Hanji clears their throat meaningfully, and Eren sheepishly ducks his head.

"Carry on," he says.

"Thank you for your permission," they say, which should come out sounding sarcastic but doesn't, for some reason. They take a deep breath and shout, "Positions!"

One of the mice, wearing a brown cloak instead of a green one, scurries up onto Other Erwin's head and pulls a drum from absolutely nowhere. It begins banging on it, a simple rhythm-keeping beat that the other mice start bouncing to. The mice tense and crouch onto all fours, then leap backwards off the bridge. Eren's eyes widen in shock, but he doesn't hear the splashes that would indicate the mice plummeting to their watery deaths.

Instead, he jerks backwards when dozens of tiny cables—grappling hooks—shoot up and hook onto the railings. A moment later, the mice follow, launching themselves into the air like tiny, white-furred missiles. They land everywhere—on the railings, on the bridge, on the _people_ , and in their hands they brandish tiny twin swords made out of what appears to be sewing needles.

Hanji's button eyes glitter. "Let the show begin," they say.

* * *

Eren is alone on the porch, staring at the moon and wondering why it never seems to change shape or position, when the cats come up to him. He doesn't notice them at first, but when he does he blinks in surprise. The little cream-colored female is sitting right in front of him, flanked on either side by a bigger cat, one a bright orange-yellow and the other a glossy brown.

"Hello," Eren says.

"You're still here," the little cream cat says. She stares unblinkingly at Eren, her tail lashing furiously behind her. The yellow cat lifts one paw and gently pins her tail down to the ground.

"I'm still here," Eren agrees.

"You have to leave," the brown cat says. His voice is much softer than the female's cold tone, but it's also a little more nervous. "It's not safe for you here."

"You guys keep saying that," Eren says, "but you won't tell me what's so dangerous about this place. Are you worried that I'll be locked in here? Because it's fine, I have-"

All three cats hiss in warning and spring to their feet, fur bristling and backs arching.

"Don't say it!" the yellow tomcat says.

The cream-colored one studies Eren. "He won't survive," she declares. The brown one flicks an ear, annoyed.

"Have faith in him," he tells her, padding up the stairs and coming to rest next to Eren. He leans over and sniffs delicately at Eren's arm, and Eren holds himself as still as possible, hardly even daring to breathe. Finally, the cat sits down and wraps his tail around his paws. "I think we might have a chance with this one."

"That's what _he_ thought about the last girl," the yellow tom says. "And look how that turned out. One captured, one locked out, and both dead."

"Wait, what?" Eren says. "What are you guys talking about?"

The cats blink at him in surprise, as if they'd forgotten he was there. "If you are unlucky," the brown one says, "you might find out soon enough."

"And if I'm lucky?" Eren asks.

"If you're lucky, you'll be able to escape this place without being caught," the female cat says. "But you have to listen to what we're saying. This place is _dangerous._ It's not safe for you here. It's not safe for any of us here."

Eren furrows his eyebrows. "But you won't tell me _how_ this place is dangerous. So far, the only thing I'm in danger of is not wanting to leave." To Eren's surprise, all three cats growl deep in their throats. His eyes widen. "Seriously? _That's_ what you're afraid of?"

"Enough already," the yellow tom growls. "He's a lost cause. I say we leave him and focus on the next one."

"Are you crazy?" the brown tom says incredulously. "Do you know how powerful they'll get if they win him over?"

"If he refuses to listen to reason, what else can we do but abandon him?" the female asks.

"Stop talking about me as if I'm not here!" Eren snaps. The back door creaks open, and he whips his head around to find Other Jean standing there, frowning down at him.

"Eren? Is everything okay?" he asks.

"Everything's fine," Eren says. I was just-" He turns around, but the cats are gone. "I was just… talking to myself. It's a part of my writing process. Helps me flesh out dialogue, you know."

"Oh," Other Jean says. "Well, I just came to ask if you wanted to do something. We could play a game, if you want, or watch a movie or something."

Other Jean tilts his head and his button eyes flash white in the moonlight. His smile in and of itself is nothing extraordinary, but the whole effect is very chilling. Eren shivers and gets to his feet.

"Um, I'm actually kind of tired," Eren says. "I think I'm just going to go to bed."

"That's fine," Other Jean says. "We'll join you soon."

Eren can't think of a polite way to refuse, so he just mutters something noncommittal and brushes past Other Jean to go into the house. He makes a quick detour to check on Other Levi before he heads upstairs. Eren finds him in the kitchen, rummaging through the fridge. His eyes widen at the huge pile of dirty dishes piled up next to the sink, balanced precariously enough that Eren worries for the safety of Other Levi's glass plates.

"Hey, uh, do you need me to do those dishes?" he asks. Other Levi smiles at him over his shoulder.

"It's fine, Eren," he says. "You don't have to do anything. You look tired, though; you should go to bed."

Eren hesitates for a second, but then says, "Okay. I'll be upstairs, then, I guess."

"We'll be up there in a minute," Other Levi says. Eren, as he walks up the stairs, considers locking the door. In the end he doesn't, but he doesn't change into his pajamas, either. It was still daytime when he left his world, and even though the moon is out here, he's not tired. Even all the excitement—from the barbecue, from Other Erwin and Other Hanji's mouse army—wasn't enough to tire him out, so he ends up sitting cross-legged against the headboard with a book in his lap.

The Others find him like that, a little while later, and if they look surprised to see him still awake, they don't show it. Other Levi crawls up the bed and sits next to him, resting his head on Eren's shoulder, while Other Jean flicks off the wall light and then joins them.

"Tired?" Eren asks them.

"Mm-hmm," Other Levi says. "We're going to bed now. Don't stay up too late, okay?"

"Okay," Eren says, a little distracted by his book, but he tenses up when Other Levi leans up and presses a chaste kiss to his mouth. The Others don't notice his discomfort—or if they do, they ignore it in favor of snuggling into his side. He manages to focus on his book for only a few moments before he feels a feather-light kiss on his neck, right over his pulse, which jumps immediately at the contact.

He looks in surprise at Other Jean, who stares back up at him with button eyes that seem somehow darker than they were before.

"Um," Eren says, intelligently. Other Jean nips his neck, and Eren jerks, a shuddery breath ripping its way out of his throat. On his other side, Other Levi presses tiny, chaste kisses in a path from his jaw down his neck, all the way to his collarbone. Eren's hands tighten on his book. He squirms under the attention, but he doesn't know if he's trying to get away from it or get closer.

"Do you want us to stop?" Other Levi purrs, stroking his fingertips down Eren's chest. They stop just above his navel, tracing little circles into the skin there. Eren's breath hitches and he chokes back a small moan when Other Levi's hands slide back up and flick his nipples through his shirt.

"D-don't," Eren stutters. Other Jean nips the bruise he sucked into Eren's neck.

"Don't stop?" he whispers. Eren whimpers in response and tilts his head to give him better access.

As Other Jean goes back to licking and sucking at Eren's skin, Other Levi straddles him and kisses him. It's soft and sweet and careful, so unlike Levi's bruising, demanding kisses that Eren panics a bit, his thoughts shattering and becoming a steady stream of _cheating cheating cheating._ His hands go to Other Levi's waist—he's not sure if it's to push him off or pull him closer—but he pulls back before Eren can do anything.

"You have to participate," he whispers, his breath ghosting across Eren's face. His button eyes flash. "Unless you're scared?"

Eren's eyes narrow at the challenge. In a flash, he has them flipped over so that he's kneeling with Other Levi's legs wrapped around his waist. Other Levi laughs, delighted, as Eren presses him into the mattress.

"That's more like it," Other Jean says. He crawls over to them and kisses Other Levi with that same considerate care, then pulls back and kisses the tip of his nose. Eren is filled with fondness at the sight; if it weren't for the button eyes, he could believe that he was with Levi and Jean, albeit less demanding versions of them.

"Eren," Other Levi says, tugging at Eren's shirt. Eren gets the message and strips it off, then reaches over to undo the buttons on Other Jean's while Other Levi wiggles out from underneath Eren and starts stripping. Eren is entranced; Other Jean's skin is perfect, unblemished and smooth under Eren's hands. He runs his fingertips over Other Jean's arm and watches in fascination as goosebumps erupt in the wake of his touch.

"Tease," Other Jean says breathlessly.

"Only for you," Eren replies with a wink. He gently pushes Other Jean's shoulders until he's flat on his back next to Other Levi, and then he takes a moment to simply stare at them hungrily. He doesn't know if they're truly physically different than Levi and Jean or if he's simply projecting his awe onto them, but they look beautiful, even with their button eyes. Other Levi slowly pushes himself up and reaches towards Eren's jeans, staring at his face the whole time. As he pulls the zipper down, finally freeing Eren's straining cock from its confines, he kisses Eren, still with that slow caution, almost like he's exploring.

Eren kisses him back hungrily, licking his way into Other Levi's mouth and tangling one hand in his hair. He moans into the kiss when Other Jean plaster's himself to Eren's back, lightly running his nails over Eren's scalp with one hand and scratching up and down his arm with the other.

"You like it rough?" he whispers, nipping at Eren's ear. Eren pulls away from Other Levi's mouth and gasps when he palms at his dick through his underwear. When he presses back against Other Jean, he feels the hard length of his cock pressing against the small of his back. Other Jean moans at the contact and Eren smirks.

"Do you have lube?" he asks. Other Levi reaches out for his bedside table, revealing a drawer filled with condoms and little packets of lube instead of papers. He presses a handful into Eren's hand and then sits up fully, reaching over Eren's shoulder to push Other Jean back. He leans over and kisses him again, this time with that same bruising force that Levi normally displays. He straddles Other Jean and looks over his shoulder at Eren.

"Well?" he says. "Jean's ass isn't going to prep itself."

Eren snaps his mouth shut and scrambles to tear open one of the lube packets. He's no stranger to topping, but it's been so long since he's done it that he wants to take his time here. He blows on his slick finger to warm it, then slowly circles it around Other Jean's hole. He settles himself between Other Jean's legs, nipping and licking at his inner thighs as he presses his finger inside.

Other Jean sighs, a quiet, content sound, and reaches around Other Levi to run a hand through Eren's hair.

"You're so perfect," he says. "Don't you think, Levi?"

"I do," Other Levi says. He twines the fingers of one hand with Other Jean's free one and uses the other to tweak his nipples. "He'd be even more perfect if he got on with fucking you senseless."

Dirty talk is usually Jean's think, so to hear it in Levi's voice—even if it's Other Levi's voice—makes Eren whine. He pulls his finger out and adds a second one, then a third. Other Jean whimpers at that and his thighs close reflexively, but Eren reaches up and holds one of them down as he twists and curls his fingers inside of him, searching for that one sweet spot that'll make him-

" _Ah!_ " Other Jean jerks when Eren finds his prostate, and Eren grins and rubs over it again, scissoring his fingers at the same time.

"Eren, Eren, enough, I'm ready," Other Jean says. Eren looks to Other Levi, who smiles down at him and presses one last kiss to Other Jean's chest.

"Take him," he says, which is the hottest thing Eren's ever heard come out of that mouth.

"Yes," he hisses, getting to his knees and lining himself up. He rips open another packet of lube with his teeth and pours the contents into his palm, then strokes it over his dick. He groans and rubs his thumb over the slit, spreading the precum beading there. "Ready?" he asks.

Other Jean arches his back off the bed and wraps his legs around Eren's waist. "Fuck me," he says, and Eren obeys. He presses in slowly, inch by inch, so that by the time he's bottomed out they're both panting. Other Jean is tight, almost unbearably so, and Eren knows this isn't going to last as long as he wants it to. Other Jean's legs tighten around his waist, a silent plea for him to move, so Eren pulls out halfway and then presses back in, slowly at first, but building a rhythm as they go on.

Gasps and moans fall freely from Other Jean's mouth as Eren thrusts into him, mingling with Eren's own moans and Other Levi's meaningless words of encouragement. Other Levi whispers them into the side of Other Jean's neck, running his nails lightly down Other Jean's chest and grinding lazily against his hip. Eren pulls almost all the way out, lifts Other Jean's hips with one arm, then slams back in, hitting Other Jean's prostate and drawing a euphoric cry from his throat.

While Other Jean is still reeling, Eren reaches over and tugs at Other Levi's hair, gently pulling him up so he can press a kiss to his mouth. Other Levi nips at his bottom lip before pulling away. "Keep going," he says, running feather-light touches up Other Jean's thigh. Other Jean gasps and shudders at the contact, and Eren becomes aware that his dick is still pressed against his prostate. He grinds his hips against Other Jean's ass.

"Eren," Other Jean moans, low and throaty. His hands scrabble at Eren's shoulders when he does it again, the nails scratching painfully at the skin there.

"More, more, more," Other Jean demands. "Faster, Eren, _fuck me_."

Eren gives a breathless little laugh. "Is he always this demanding?" he asks.

"No," Other Levi says. "You must be special."

Other Jean tugs gently at Eren's hair. "Eren, please," he moans, squirming. He clenches his ass down on Eren's dick, and Eren lets out a little groan as he pulls out and thrusts back in.

He sets a demanding pace, one that has Other Jean nearly breathless with pleasure. Every sound he makes, every gasp and moan and mewl, makes Eren groan in response. The wet, tight heat surrounding his cock is better than anything he's ever felt before. His hands tighten around Other Jean's hips, and he wonders if they're going to leave bruises. The thought sends a spike of arousal through him, and his hips stutter in their rhythm at the though of Other Jean walking around with Eren's mark on him.

Eren's name spills from Other Jean's mouth like a prayer, so loud that Eren worries the neighbors will hear them. But Other Levi turns his head and kisses him quiet, so that the only sounds that escape his mouth are muffled moans.

Eren releases Other Jean's hips and presses his hands into the mattress on either side of him; Other Jean keens at the change in angle and writhes on Eren's cock, his mouth open around a silent scream. He sucks in a shuddering gasp when Eren pounds into him again and again, his hands clawing at Eren's shoulders.

"He can't cum untouched," Other Levi purrs, running a hand through Other Jean's sweaty hair. "You could fuck him like this for hours and he'd be just as desperate as he is now."

Eren lets out a moan. "God, Jean," he says breathlessly.

"Need me to help with that?" Other Levi asks, lightly trailing his hand up Other Jean's chest. He rubs the pads of his fingers around Other Jean's peaked nipples, then swipes his thumbs over them. Other Jean gives a shuddering moan, his voice shaking with the force of Eren's thrusts. Other Levi reaches down; his hand finds Other Jean's cock and pulls, sliding his thumb over the head to spread the precum that's beading at the slit.

Other Jean cums hard, shouting Eren's name as he spills all over his chest. His ass clenches tight around Eren's cock and he groans, his hips stuttering as he comes closer to his own release. It builds up in him like a wave, making him curl his toes and clench his fists tight in the bed sheets. His orgasm takes him by surprise, making him squeeze his eyes shut and gasp as he empties his cum into Other Jean. His vision whites out from the force of it, and he comes to a few moments later, his heart pounding and Jean's name still on his lips.

He lifts himself off of Other Jean and pulls out, both of them hissing at the stimulation. Milky white cum immediately spills down his ass and stains the bed sheets, but neither of them has the energy to move to a new, dry spot. Eren flops onto his back next to Other Jean and throws an arm over his eyes, both of them panting hard. Other Levi runs a finger through the mess on Other Jean's stomach and licks it off, his grey button eyes glittering.

"Impressive," he says. "But are you really going to leave me to take care of this by myself?"

He spreads his legs obscenely, his cock hanging hard and heavy between them. Other Jean laughs.

"And you call me demanding?" he says.

"Want to help me out, Eren?" Other Levi purrs. Eren feels his cock twitch, interested in the proceedings despite how spent he is. Still, he pulls himself up with a small grunt of effort and crawls over to Other Levi, settling himself in between his legs once he's there. Other Jean immediately reaches out and runs a hand through his hair, down his neck, across the raw scratch marks on his shoulders, barely putting any pressure on Eren's skin. Goosebumps erupt where his fingers trail, making Eren shivers as he makes himself comfortable.

Other Levi leans back against the headboard and spreads his legs, watching hungrily as Eren licks a stripe from the base of his cock to the head. Precum beads at the tip and Eren licks it off, the salty flavor headier than wine when it hits his tongue. He takes the tip into his mouth and sucks lightly, and Other Levi lets out a moan.

It's been a while since Eren last sucked a dick. He takes his time, getting used to the feeling of having a hot, heavy cock in his mouth. He bobs his head lightly, taking more and more of Other Levi in as he goes. Inch by inch, like pressing into Other Jean's tight heat; he groans at the memory, feeling his dick start to swell between his legs. Other Levi moans in response, his hand finding purchase in Eren's hair and holding on tight.

Other Jean drags his nails lightly down Eren's back, making him shiver and arch against the painful pleasure.

"You're very good at this," he murmurs, his voice a little hoarse still.

Other Levi chuckles, a little breathless. "He is," he agrees. Eren looks up at him from under his lashes and hollows his cheeks, sucking even as he pulls all the way off of Other Levi's dick. He looks over his shoulder at Other Jean.

"Do we have any lube left?" he asks, wiping a hand across his chin to catch the spit that's collected there. Other Jean nods, and Eren grins. "Do you want to finger me?" If Other Jean had pupils, Eren's sure they would've been blown wide at that. He turns back to Other Levi's dick, feeling smug when he hears Other Jean immediately make for the drawer in the bedside table. Eren takes Other Levi's cock in his mouth and begins bobbing his head again, setting a slow, torturous pace. Between that and the sounds of both Other Levi's moans and Other Jean ripping open a packet of lube behind him, Eren's hard again in no time.

The first finger is cold but quickly warms up when it slides smoothly past the ring of muscle. It's not nearly enough to stretch him, but it's a familiar, welcome feeling. The digit twists and probes at Eren's walls, searching for that bundle of nerves that makes stars explode behind his eyelids. When Other Jean finds it, Eren moans loudly and presses his ass back against his finger. Other Levi curses and grips Eren's head with both hands.

Another finger is added, then another, and Other Jean starts a quick, relentless rhythm, the thrusting of his fingers shallow and just enough to drive Eren crazy. His cock oozes precum onto the bed, and his eyes shut of their own accord even as he continues to suck and lick at Other Levi's cock. His tongue swirls around the head inside his mouth and more precum leaks out, salty and hot on his tongue. He thrusts his hips down, desperate for some friction against his dick, but Other Jean wraps an arm around his hips and pulls him up so his ass is in the air, and Eren whines in protest.

"Don't worry," Other Jean coos. "I've got you." His hand leaves Eren's hip and finds his dick, slick with precum and flushed with arousal. He grips it in his fist and pulls, slowly, with barely any pressure. Eren groans, both at the pleasure and in frustration.

"Jean, don't be a tease," Other Levi says. He thrusts into Eren's mouth, the head of his cock hitting the back of Eren's throat and making him choke, and Eren reaches up to press his hips into the bed even as he presses back against the fingers in his ass.

"Eren, Eren, Eren, I'm going to cum," Other Levi gasps, throwing his head back. Eren moans in agreement, pleasure building steady low in his gut. His hand speeds up on his cock and he whines low in his throat, pushing backwards against Other Jean's fingers in a plea for him to hurry up. Other Jean curls his fingers and digs them into Eren's prostate relentlessly, completely giving up on thrusting in favor of massaging the bundle of nerves. His orgasm takes him completely by surprise, making his whole body go rigid as his cock spurts out thick ropes of cum. Other Levi cums not long after, and Eren, still limp from the force of his own orgasm, nearly chokes.

The three of them lay panting for a few moments, trying to calm their racing hearts and slow their breathing. Eren floats in the hazy pleasure of the afterglow for a long time, his mind blank and a small, smug smile on his face. Eventually, Other Levi gets up and goes to the bathroom; he comes back with a warm, damp washcloth, which he uses to clean up Other Jean and Eren. As he comes back from tossing the damp cloth into the hamper in the closet, he flicks off the light, bathing the room in darkness.

Other Jean shoves a pillow on top of the large wet spot on the bed and immediately rolls on top of it, throwing an arm carelessly across Eren's waist. Other Levi joins them, crawling up the bed to flop down at Eren's other side. He cups Eren's face and presses a kiss to each of his eyes.

"We love you, Eren," he says softly. Other Jean, already half asleep on Eren's other side, hums in agreement. "We love you so much."

"I-" Eren's voice catches in his throat and he swallows hard, his heartbeat speeding up again. His voice is hardly more than a whisper when he says, "I love you guys, too."

Other Levi is satisfied, though, and snuggles into Eren's side. His breathing evens out only a few minutes later and Other Jean follows not long afterwards, but Eren can't seem to fall asleep. He tries hard not to look to either side of him; he doesn't want to find out what happens to The Others' button eyes when they sleep—do they have eyelids that cover their eyes? Or do they simply sleep with the buttons out and exposed?

Something pricks painfully at Eren's eyes and he reaches up to rub at them, surprised when his hands come away wet. He's crying? He can't figure out why; he's never cried after sex before, no matter how much Jean likes to say so.

His eyes widen.

Jean.

The thought of his boyfriend just brings more tears to his eyes, as well as guilt that gnaws away at his stomach. His earlier thoughts (cheating cheating _cheating_ ) return but Eren can't dismiss them this time. Was what he did cheating, even if Other Jean and Other Levi are just different versions of his real boyfriends? _But when did they ever say that?_ some voice in the back of his head hisses. Eren claps a hand over his mouth and squeezes his eyes shut. His tears are hot, sticky, and uncomfortable as they slide down into his hair but he doesn't wipe them away.

He tries not to wake Other Jean and Other Levi but they don't react, even when a shudder rips its way through Eren's body. Their breathing stays steady, deep, and almost scarily even. Eren is hit, suddenly, with the urge to be home, with a longing so powerful that he lets out a pained moan through his tears, muffled by the hand still held over his mouth. He wants to be back in _his_ Hunter's House, with its weird neighbors and its dead lawn and its faded, peeling paint. He wants to go back to before he had this guilt, when coming to this Other world made him happy instead of devastated.

The only way out of this world that he's figured out so far is to go to sleep. He always ends up back in his world, somehow. He supposes he could get out of bed and crawl back through the tunnel behind the little door, but he's too exhausted to get out of bed. He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and tries to sleep.

He's gone before he even exhales.

* * *

 **Quick disclaimer: Despite Eren's confusion, what he did _is_ infidelity. I'm in no way condoning this behaviour, but sometimes characters have to do problematic things in order for there to be conflict within the plot. **

**On a lighter note, what did you guys think of this chapter? I read and appreciate every single comment I get, and they all make my day, so don't be afraid to leave your thoughts below :)**


	4. Chapter 4

" **She takes her first step down the dark corridor.**

 **She could smell dust and damp and mustiness.**

 **The cat padded along beside her.**

' **And why was that?' asked the cat, although it sounded barely interested.**

' **Because,' she said, 'when you're scared but you still do it anyway,** _ **that's**_ **brave.'"**

— **Neil Gaiman,** _ **Coraline**_

* * *

Eren wakes up to the sight of two pairs of eyes hovering over him worriedly. He blinks, disoriented, until his memory catches up with him and he becomes alert instantly.

"What are you doing?" he says, sitting up. Levi and Jean—the real Levi and Jean, with eyes instead of buttons—exchange worried looks and move back to give him space.

"Eren, are you feeling okay?" Jean asks.

"Yeah, why?" Eren asks, wincing as pain flares up in his shoulders. He flushes, remembering why his shoulders sting so much, but luckily (or unluckily) Levi and Jean simply assume the warmth in his cheeks is from fever. Jean puts the back of his hand on Eren's forehead.

"He's kind of warm," he says softly to Levi.

"He's always kind of warm," Levi replies.

"Quit talking about me like I'm not here," Eren snaps. "Why are you guys so freaked out over my health all of a sudden anyway?"

"We just got back from our date," Jean says. "We figured you wouldn't wait up, since we ran so late."

"What time is it?" Eren asks.

"Just after twelve," Levi says. "We were concerned when we came home and found you asleep."

"It's the middle of the night," Eren says. "That's not concerning."

"It is if we find you passed out and sweating on the middle of the floor in the living room," Jean counters. "Are you sure you're feeling okay? We think you might be coming down with something."

Eren frowns. "On the floor?" he asks, confused. The Others have never sent him back like that before, not once. He usually ends up on the bed, or, on one occasion, the sofa.

"On the floor," Levi confirms. "The Doll was just sitting on your chest, watching you. It was freaking us out, so we locked it in a kitchen drawer."

Irritation surges in Eren's stomach but he's too tired and preoccupied to worry about getting Little Me out right now.

"I'm fine, guys," he says. "Today was just kind of a weird day for me." He swings his legs out over the side of the bed and stands up, wincing a little. His skin feels clammy and a little sticky, both from sweat and other fluids that he doesn't really care to think about right now. "I'm going to go take a shower. You're probably tired, though, so you can go to sleep. I think I'm going to crash in the guest room tonight."

"What? Why?" Jean asks. Eren shrugs.

"Well, if I'm sick like you think I am, I wouldn't want to get you two sick as well," he says. They look like they're about to protest, so he turns away and busies himself with pulling a new set of pajamas out of his dresser. "It's fine, guys. We made the guest room comfortable specifically for this purpose, remember?"

"Yeah, but that was for in case we got into a fight and needed some space," Levi says. "Not so we could quarantine you if you got sick."

Eren shrugs and gives them a helpless smile as he walks out of the room.

"Stubborn bastard," he hears Jean mutter, and he scoffs. If they knew what he'd just done, they wouldn't want him anywhere near their bed, either. The thought sobers him up instantly and wipes the smile right off his face, and he showers quickly, wanting to be asleep already so he doesn't have to dwell on his thoughts.

He barely dries himself off before putting on his pajamas, so the flannel pants and soft t-shirt stick uncomfortably to his damp skin as he heads to the guest room. He doesn't look into his bedroom as he passes; the idea of looking either of his boyfriends in the eyes right now is not appealing in the slightest.

When he gets to the guest room, the first thing he notices, after flicking on the light, is that the bed is messed up, as if someone was sleeping in it and then left quickly, with no time to make it.

Shit.

"Mikasa," Eren breathes, his eyes wide with horror. In all the excitement of everything that happened earlier, he completely forgot about her. It's late as hell but Eren checks his phone anyway. Sure enough, he has three missed calls and fourteen texts from Mikasa, with the latest being from only fifteen minutes ago. Eren bites his lip and sends her a text.

 **Eren: hey r u still awake?**

It's a long shot—or at least, it would be with anyone else. He's only a little bit surprised when she texts back immediately.

 **Mikasa: Call me.**

Eren winces. She used proper punctuation and capitalization, which means she must be really mad. But even though he's tired as hell and wants nothing more than to be asleep, he knows she'll only get even angrier if he doesn't obey. He calls her, and she picks up on the first ring.

"You'd better have a good way to explain yourself," she says as soon as the call connects. Eren winces again and runs a hand through his hair.

"I don't even know how," he says. "I can't remember the last time we got into a fight like that."

"The fight was the stupidest thing I've ever witnessed," she says, "but I was talking about you ignoring me all day."

"Today was just an off day," Eren says. His voice cracks in the middle of his sentence and his eyes start stinging, and he rubs at them furiously, refusing to cry again. Mikasa is silent for a moment.

"Eren, what happened?" she asks, her voice stony. Eren can imagine the expression that's probably on her face—her jaw is probably clenched, and her eyes are probably cold and flashing with fury—and he lets out a slightly watery chuckle. "Did those idiots do something to you? Do I need to come back there?"

"No, nothing like that," Eren says. His voice gets quiet and he glances at the door to make sure it's closed and locked. "Mikasa," he whispers, "I think I cheated on them."

Another silence. "Explain," Mikasa says again. "You guys already aren't monogamous. If you're thinking about adding someone else to the relationship-"

"Mikasa," Eren says sharply, and she immediately falls silent. "They went out today—well, I convinced them to go out. And while they were gone…."

"They don't know about this, do they," Mikasa says. It's not a question.

"No," Eren admits, his voice choked with tears. "And they just got home and they think I'm sick because I passed out on the floor—I'm not actually sick, so don't freak out—but they're both super tired and they tried to take care of me and Mikasa, I don't deserve it and I don't know what to do."

He's crying by the time he finishes, tears running down his cheeks like tiny rivers. His lip quivers, a sign that sobbing can't be far behind, and he bites it to prevent any sounds from escaping his mouth.

"Eren, do you need me to come over?" Mikasa asks. She sounds a little helpless, and Eren remembers, suddenly, that she never has any idea what to do when people are crying. He huffs out something that might pass as a humorless laugh.

"No," he says. "It's late, and I kind of just want to be asleep."

"Eren, you should talk to them," Mikasa says. "I'm not a marriage counselor and I have no idea what to do right now."

"We're not married," Eren says sullenly. He sniffs, wipes his cheeks, says, "You aren't angry at me?"

"Oh no, I'm fucking pissed," Mikasa says. "You cheated on your boyfriends, Eren, and then you called me crying about it." She sighs, and her tone softens. "Look, I know that you probably feel guilty as hell right now, but nothing I say or do is going to help. You can't ask me to cover this up, either. If they ask, I'm going to tell them."

"I wouldn't have asked you to kee my secrets for me," Eren says. "I just needed to tell someone, I guess."

"You know who you really need to tell?"

"Jean and Levi?" Eren mumbles.

"Jean and Levi. They don't deserve this, Eren."

"I know," Eren says, his voice cracking again as a fresh wave of tears fills his eyes. Mikasa sighs again.

"Go to sleep, Eren," she says gently. "You're always more emotional late at night. You can call me tomorrow if you need to, okay?"

"Okay," Eren says. "Mikasa? Thank you."

"Don't thank me for this, Eren," she says softly. "Levi's my cousin, and Jean is one of my closest friends. I love you, but if you hurt them, I don't know how I'll be able to choose a side."

"Who says there will be sides?" Eren asks. Mikasa scoffs.

"There are already sides, Eren," she says. "We're just the only ones who know about them."

She hangs up then, and after resisting the urge to throw his phone at the wall, Eren cries himself to sleep for the second night in a row.

* * *

The next morning, Eren wakes up pretty early considering how tired he was the day before and how late he went to bed. The sun is still low in the sky when he opens his eyes. He tries to go back to sleep but he can't, so he ends up watching through the cracks in the blinds as the sky lightens.

His phone will be dead soon, if it hasn't died already, so he doesn't even bother using it to check how early it is. There's no clock in the room, so he keeps track of the time by listening to the sounds in the apartment.

Voices, footsteps, the shower, the coffeemaker, they all form the soundtrack to a daily morning routine that Eren normally sleeps through. He's tempted to get up and join it, for once, but in the end, he burrows deeper into the blanket and closes his eyes. He can't go back to sleep, though, and he can't block out the sounds of life going on around him.

Levi leaves around seven in the morning. There's a pause between the front door opening and the front door closing, and Eren imagines Jean walking him to the front door and kissing him as he leaves. The thought sends a pang of hurt through his chest.

Hours pass. Eren's gets up once to pee but then he gets right back into bed and closes his eyes again. He read once, somewhere, that other senses are enhanced when one is turned off, and he likes to imagine that with his eyes closed he can hear more than he'd normally be able to.

He hears Jean in the kitchen, hears the pause in his movements, the creaking of the stairs as he walks up to them. He hears the knob being turned before the door opens, and he hears Jean cross the room and come to a stop at Eren's bedside.

Jean reaches out and runs a hand through Eren's hair, scratching lightly at the nape of his neck, and Eren's eyes open of their own accord. He notices that Jean's bottom lip looks a little swollen, and he wonders if it's from his nervous habit of biting his lip.

"Hi," Jean says softly.

"Hi," Eren says. "What time is it?"

"Just after eleven," Jean says. "Do you maybe want to get up now?"

"Not really," Eren says, pulling the blankets up to his chin. Jean frowns in disapproval.

"Eren, are you sure you're feeling alright?" he asks. Eren looks up at him in silence for a while, remembering the conversation he had with Mikasa before bed last night.

"No," he says. He doesn't cry this time—he doesn't think he has any tears left. Jean, to his credit, only nods.

"Okay," he says. "What do you feel? Sick?"

"No," Eren says. "I just don't feel like getting out of bed right now."

"Because you're comfortable or because you don't feel like moving at all?" Jean asks.

"Don't feel like moving," Eren mumbles.

"Ah, jeez," Jean mutters to himself. He sighs and rubs at his eyes. "Alright, come on. Get up and go shower, or brush your teeth at least, then meet me downstairs."

"What?" Eren says.

"You heard me." Jean pats Eren's leg through the comforter. "Half the day is gone already. You can't spend all day in bed."

"Yes I fucking can," Eren says, annoyed.

"Eren, seriously," Jean says. "Get up. You know you're just going to feel even shittier if you waste a whole day doing nothing."

Jean is absolutely right, but Eren doesn't want to give him the satisfaction of saying so. He pulls the comforter up to cover his head. Jean rips it away, and Eren groans loudly.

"Why do you have to torture me like this?" he exclaims dramatically. "Can't you just go back to the kitchen and leave me here alone?"

"Housewife jokes," Jean says. "Real classy. Fuck you, Jaeger, I'm not doing this because I get off on being sadistic."

"Could have fooled me," Eren mumbles.

"I'm doing this because I'm genuinely worried about you and I don't want to leave you sulking in your own body odor and depression all day."

"Body odor?" Eren says. He surreptitiously sniffs his arm. "Fuck off, I showered last night." Jean narrows his eyes suddenly and leans in, uncomfortably close. Eren maintains eye contact and raises an eyebrow, daring him to do whatever it is he's about to do.

"Have you been crying?" Jean asks. Eren blinks in shock.

"What?"

"Your eyes are puffy," Jean says, "and your nose is still a little red. You've been crying, haven't you?"

"It's none of your goddamn business," Eren growls. "For your information, I was high for most of yesterday."

"Yeah, right," Jean says. "Seriously though, Eren, get up. Come on, I'm kind of ahead in most of my classes so I can afford to take today off."

"There goes your perfect attendance award," Eren says, even as he allows Jean to pull him off the bed and push him towards the bedroom.

"Brush your teeth, change your clothes if you want, then come downstairs and eat something, okay?" Jean says. "I can put on a movie or whatever, or we can just sit and stare at each other in complete silence. Whatever you want to do."

"I want to go back to sleep."

"Whatever you want to do besides going back to sleep."

Eren groans again, but he brushes his teeth, splashes his face with cold water, and decides to stay in his pajamas. He finds Jean in the kitchen, and for a moment he leans against the door jamb and simply watches him as he works. It looks like he's making breakfast for Eren, if the oatmeal—which Jean hates with a passion—is any indication. Eren watches as he sprinkles sugar and cinnamon on top of the oatmeal and tosses in a handful of raspberries, and he feels guilt well up in him again. It's not as all-consuming in the light of day as it was just a few hours ago, so Eren is able to swallow it down and walk up to his boyfriend.

"Is that for me?" he asks, even though he knows it is.

"No, it's for those cats that wander around outside," Jean says. "Do you want to eat in here or in the living room?"

The little door is in the living room. Eren bites his lip.

"The study has a TV, right?" he asks.

"Yeah, do you want to eat in there?" Jean says. Eren nods, a little sheepish for reasons he doesn't quite understand. Jean only smiles softly and grabs the bowl of oatmeal. "Okay, then. Grab those mugs on your way, will you?"

Eren carefully lifts the two mugs of steaming hot chocolate from the counter and follows Jean into the study, where he flops into the single armchair and sighs.

"Here, I'll trade you," Jean says. He hands Eren the bowl and takes the mugs, then places them on the desk, where they'll be within arm's reach for both of them. He then sits carefully in his desk chair—Eren's never sat in it before, but he's heard enough of Jean's complaining to know that one of the wheels is loose and unpredictable—and queues up Netflix.

Eren takes a bite of his oatmeal and watches Jean with quiet fascination. He's talking as he scrolls through Netflix's questionable selection of movies, but they both know it's background noise for Eren. Still, it's comforting and he keeps it up until the movie's started, for which Eren's thankful. It's comfortable, this domesticity, and it's rare enough that he doesn't want to do anything that might cause it to end.

He finishes his oatmeal in record time and quickly starts on his hot chocolate. It's a recipe that Jean refuses to share with anyone, claiming that it's been passed down from generation to generation in his family. Eren and Levi are pretty sure it's just Swiss Miss with a few melted pieces of chocolate in it, but it's good enough that neither calls him out on it.

Halfway through the movie, Jean abandons his rolling chair and settles himself in Eren's lap, sitting sideways with his legs thrown carelessly over the arm of the chair and his head resting on Eren's shoulder. Eren buries his face in Jean's soft hair and holds him close, and tries not to remember the way Other Jean's face looked when Eren was fucking him.

"Hey, Jean," he says a few hours later, when he's helping Jean throw together some lunch. "Why do people make bad decisions?"

Jean looks up from the cucumber he's slicing—he keeps cutting it even though he's not watching what he's doing, and Eren nearly has a heart attack when the knife slips and nearly cuts off Jean's finger. He gives Eren a strange look.

"What brought that on?" he asks. "Have you been making bad decisions lately?"

"I think so," Eren says. "Actually, yeah. I'm kind of having a crisis about it."

"I'm sure it's not that bad, whatever it is," Jean says. He puts the cucumber slices on a plate, then deftly slices a lemon in half and squeezes the juice over them. "Things have a habit of working out for you. To answer your question, though, I'm not sure why people make bad decisions. Why does anyone do anything?"

"You have to have _some_ type of answer besides that," Eren insists.

"Hmm, I don't know," Jean says. "I guess people make bad decisions because they seem like good ones at the time. You know, hindsight is 20/20 but most people are completely blind when it comes to foresight."

"Wow," Eren says. "That was surprisingly wise, Jean."

"It's been known to happen," Jean says. "Now get your ass over here and help me with these sandwiches."

* * *

Much as hates it, he has to admit that Jean was right when he said that Eren would've felt worse if he stayed in bed all day. Even though he didn't do anything except eat and watch movies today, he at least got up and moved around. He even helped Jean make lunch, something which he was surprised to find he enjoyed—not because he doesn't like Jean, but because cooking is far from his favorite pastime.

He and Jean are in the living room when Levi comes home, a little earlier than he normally does. Jean goes to greet him but Eren is too comfortable on the sofa to move. Levi will understand, having pulled the same excuse on multiple occasions before.

Eren closes his eyes and listens to Jean and Levi in the kitchen. Their voices are distinct but the words are muffled through the walls, but he doesn't mind. He doesn't really care about what they're talking about anyway.

A light suddenly turns on; he can see the glow through his eyelids. He makes a face and cracks open an eye, thinking that Jean had come back and is shining his phone into Eren's face, but Jean isn't there. Trepidation drops into his stomach like a load of lead, and he takes in a shuddery breath. He looks over at the little door, and his eyes widen at the sight of the purple glow shining through the cracks that outline the doorframe.

"What," Eren gasps. He stumbles to his feet and to the door, his movements jerky with impatience and confusion, and just a touch of anxiety, too. The door has _never_ done this before, and especially not when Jean and Levi are home. He wonders, absently, whether there will be an Other Eren in that world if he brings his boyfriends with him this time. Thankful that he hadn't locked the door after using it last night, he opens it, digging his fingers in between the door and the door jamb since he doesn't have the key to pull on.

The glow disappears as soon as the door opens, revealing nothing but the cracked, crumbling bricks he saw when he first opened the door. Levi comes in before Eren can do much as shut the door.

"Hey, Eren, come take your doll. I found it in the kitchen and it nearly gave me a heart attack." He looks up from the doll in his hands and immediately closes his eyes with a groan. "Eren, are you fucking kidding me right now?"

"What's wrong?" Jean asks, coming up behind Levi. He finds Eren crouched in front of the open door. "Oh my god, Eren, really?"

And Eren gets defensive, like he always does when they double team him.

"What?" he says. "I'm not allowed to have the door open?"

"Eren, we talked about this," Jean says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"No, we argued about this," Eren replies, standing up and clenching his hands into fists at his sides. "And I got the really fucking short end of the stick."

"Eren, there are literally rats coming into the apartment through that door," Levi says. "Have you lost your damn mind?"

"Fuck off, Levi," Eren snaps. Jean's eyes widen while Levi's narrow, and Eren scoffs. "What, you can talk like that to us but we can't talk like that to you?"

"What the hell is your problem?" Jean says. "You've been acting like an ass ever since we got here."

"I never wanted to move here in the first place," Eren says. "And you knew that, and you made me come with you anyway."

"No one said you had to come with us," Jean says, and Eren's mouth drops open in shock.

"Okay, enough," Levi says. "Jesus Christ, are we really having this argument again?"

"Well, I wouldn't say it's the same one," Jean says. "Apparently Eren never wanted to move here at all, which is news to me."

"Maybe it wouldn't be if you weren't so fucking busy all the time," Eren spits. "You guys have both been ignoring me since we got to this place and I'm sick of it!"

"Woah, wait," Levi says.

"Ignoring you?" Jean repeats incredulously. "Eren, I'm in fucking college! I have things I need to do."

"And I can't control my work schedule," Levi says. "You think I want to be working overtime every fucking night?"

Eren growls in frustration, angry tears pricking at his eyes. He's half tempted to let them fall, if only to make Jean, who's a terrible sympathy crier, cry as well.

"I work too, you know," he says. "Everyone thinks that writers are lazy but I've been so fucking stressed out lately and you haven't even noticed!"

"The only thing we noticed is you acting like a whiny bitch," Levi says. "Eren, act your fucking age. You can't have everything you want all the time."

"We don't even know what you want," Jean says exasperatedly. "You don't talk to us anymore!"

"I would if you were there to listen," Eren says, scowling. Jean throws his hands up into the air and Levi blinks incredulously.

"Are you serious?" he says. "Jean is here with you every day."

"Jean is locked in his study every day," Eren growls. Anger burns in his gut, hot and writhing, making him see red. He's aware that he's about to lose his temper, but he feels detached, like an uninvolved observer in his own body, and he couldn't have stopped himself even if he wanted to.

"Eren, you're being unreasonable," Levi says.

"I can't believe you went snooping for the key," Jean adds. "After we specifically asked you not to."

" _Asked_ me?" Eren exclaims. Something inside of him snaps and he finally releases all of the fury that had been building up in him for who knows how long. "You didn't ask me, you douchebag, you fucking told me! You're always treating me like I'm a child who doesn't know the difference between a condom and a water balloon and I'm so fucking done with it!"

"Eren-" Levi starts.

"Levi, shut the _fuck_ up," Eren snarls. "You're even worse than he is. You don't even know what the hell is happening most days because you're never fucking home! I'm a goddamn adult and I can make my own decisions, and it would be nice if you'd trust my judgement every once in a while."

"Trust your judgement? Like when you tried to convince us that leaving the door open was a good idea even when there were actual rats getting into the apartment?" Jean says, his tone like acid. "Yeah, great fucking idea, Eren. You may be an adult, but you're acting like such a brat right now."

"I'm older than _you_ ," Eren spits. "And I actually contribute to our income instead of spending thousands every year on classes that are never going to lead anywhere, unlike you."

"You went to college, too, you fucking hypocrite," Levi says, his eyes narrowed into slits.

"I went to college to get a degree in a field that makes money," Eren says, "not so I could become some housewife whore who pays for his place in the house with sex and food and paints in his spare time!"

He watches in satisfaction as Jean's eyes widen, filling first with shock, then hurt.

"Eren, that was way too fucking far!" Levi says.

"I'm not lying, though," Eren says bitterly. "He's useless."

"Eren!" Levi snaps. "Get the fuck out."

"Are you serious," Eren says, scoffing incredulously through the tears streaming down his cheeks. "My name's on the lease, so I don't have to go anywhere. Why don't you leave, since you're so good at that already. I'm surprised you even know where anything in this house is, considering you spend so much time at work."

Levi lets out a frustrated growl and curls his hands like he wants to strangle Eren.

"What the _hell_ is your problem?" Jean shouts, his voice choked with tears "Why are you being such a fucking asshole?"

"Why are you still here?" Eren counters. "Why are either of you still here? I don't need you here if all you're going to do is ignore me!"

"Eren, shut up before I break your neck," Levi says.

"That's just like you," Eren sneers. "You have the emotional depth of a dead fish, you neurotic clean freak. Go ahead, beat me up, see where the hell that lands you."

"You know what," Levi says coldly. His tone is like ice but Eren can see the hurt in his eyes, and it fills him with vindictive pleasure. "Fine. Jean, let's go."

"What?" Jean says. Levi takes his hand, his expression stony as he glares at Eren.

"We're leaving," he says. "I'm not going to sit here and take this, and neither are you."

Eren doesn't watch them as they walk out of the house, but he flinches when Levi slams the front door shut, so hard that the deadbolt breaks and the door creaks open again, hanging by its hinges. He falls to his knees, his vision so blurry with tears that he can barely see anything.

" _God damn it!_ " he shouts, slamming his fist down onto the floor. A shuddery sob rips its way out of his throat, the first of many, and Eren curls up into a ball on the floor and sobs until his chest hurts and his throat is raw.

It's cold here, so close to the open front door, but he doesn't move. His eyes are open and glassy and unseeing, still sticky and puffy from tears. He doesn't know how long it's been since Jean and Levi left, and he's not sure he wants to know. Movement in the corner of his eye catches his attention, and he watches disinterestedly as the three cats pad up to him on silent paws.

The brown one, the one that was the most sympathetic to him back in the Other world, nudges Eren's hand with his nose. The yellow cat hisses in displeasure when Eren doesn't even twitch.

"Not now. I'm having a crisis," Eren mumbles. The phrasing brings back memories of his conversation with Mikasa last night and he briefly debates calling her, but he's sure Levi and Jean would have called her by now, too. Besides, what would he even say to her? She'd already made it clear that she thinks Eren is in the wrong, but she doesn't know everything. She probably wouldn't even give Eren a chance to explain what's been going on.

Eren moans and closes his eyes, and manages to ignore, for a while, the cats attempt to get him up. Eventually one of them bites him in the ear, hard enough that he yelps and jerks back.

"What the fuck," he snarls. The cats hiss and back away from him when he pulls himself to his feet, and when he steps towards them threateningly they turn and flee further into the house. He sighs in exasperation and doesn't bother going after them. Now that he's up, though, he might as well get comfortable. Flopping onto the couch, he curls up into a ball, squeezes his eyes shut, and tries to go to sleep.

He blinks to wakefulness what feels like seconds later, but must be hours judging by how dark it is outside the windows. His phone is dead and he gets that familiar jolt of anxiety at the thought of missing any calls, but then he remembers that the only three people who ever call him are all pissed off at him. He doesn't bother plugging his phone into its charger.

It's freezing in the living room. He realizes he's starving, but he doesn't feel like making food for himself right now. He doesn't feel like doing anything except going back to sleep, this time in his own bed. But as he's pulling himself off the couch to leave the room, the little door starts to glow purple.

He exhales steadily and slowly sits back down. Little Me is still on the floor where Levi dropped it; its mismatched button eyes gleam in the door's light. Eren doesn't bother asking it what he should do, this time. His only choices are to go upstairs and never leave his room, or go to the Other world. At least there he can get some food.

He crawls through the tunnel with none of the excitement he normally feels. Everything hurts, a deep, dull, emotional ache that he knows can't be healed easily. The tunnel glows a little brighter than it normally does, as if it can sense his emotions and is trying to cheer him up. He appreciates the effort, even though it's wasted on him.

When he gets to the Other world, he makes a quick stop in the bathroom to wash his face instead of going straight to the kitchen. He studies himself in the mirror, frowning at his puffy, red-rimmed eyes and the redness in his cheeks and cursing himself for being such an ugly, obvious crier. There's nothing he can do about that now, though, so he splashes cold water on his face and goes out to meet his Other boyfriends.

Other Jean is, predictably, standing at the stove, stirring what looks like a pot of soup, but this time Other Levi is there, too. They both look up and smile at him in tandem when he enters. Eren remembers how devastated Jean and Levi looked and wonders if its right that he's essentially ignoring them and replacing them temporarily with smiling, button-eyed versions of them, but he pushes the guilt away and focuses on the bitterness that's still simmering in his belly.

"Good morning," Other Jean says when Eren takes a seat at the kitchen table. "Food should be done soon. Would you be a doll and set the table, please?"

"Sure," Eren says. He sighs and resolves to focus on the present instead of dwelling on the past, and then he gets up and goes to the cabinets to find bowls and spoons. Soon the table is set and the food is distributed, and Eren's seated at the table with Other Jean on one side of him and Other Levi on the other. The soup—chicken noodle, his favorite—is delicious, but Eren can't enjoy it like he usually would. Other Jean and Other Levi exchange worried looks.

"Eren, are you alright?" Other Levi asks. "You seem a little down."

"'M fine," Eren mumbles, tilting his head so his fringe falls into his face. But Other Jean gently tips his face up and looks into his eyes. His lips thin with displeasure.

"You've been crying, haven't you?" he asks. Other Levi gasps.

"Crying?" he says worriedly. "Why? Eren, what happened?"

"I just got into a fight with Jean and Levi," Eren admits. His voice cracks; he clears it before he continues. "It's not a big deal."

"Not a big deal?" Other Levi repeats. "Eren, they made you cry."

"Are they so emotionally dead that they'd do this to you for no reason?" Other Jean says.

"Guys, it's fine," Eren says.

"What did you fight about?"

"Locking the door that leads to this place," Eren admits.

"I bet you told them that you wanted it open, though, right? Do they just not trust your judgement?" Other Levi asks.

"That's so messed up," Other Jean asks. "They can't treat you like a child."

Eren narrows his eyes a little. That sounds suspiciously like what he'd said to Jean and Levi.

"We'd never do that to you," Other Levi says. "Would we, Jean?"

"Of course not," Other Jean says. "We value you here, Eren. We love you."

"You do like it here, don't you?" Other Levi asks.

"I love it here," Eren is quick to assure them. "You have no idea how much it's helped me to have somewhere I can escape to."

"Good," Other Levi says. He and Other Jean smile at each other, and Other Jean gets up and goes to the drawer that holds all those useless keys. He returns with a small package, artfully wrapped in white paper and tied with a silver bow. Eren frowns bemusedly as he opens it, carefully undoing the ribbon and tugging the paper away from the box. Inside, he finds two black buttons and a needle that's already been threaded.

"What?" he gasps. He's confused, though way in the back of his mind he knows exactly what they're asking of him.

"Black is traditional, though obviously the two of us broke that tradition," Other Levi says, smiling serenely.

"If you'd prefer blue, we could do that, too," Other Jean says. As he speaks, his button eyes flash and briefly turn royal blue.

"Or goldenrod," Other Levi says. _Flash!_ and his buttons turn yellow.

"Or," Other Jean says, as Eren looks down at the buttons on the table in horror, "we could match your eye colors." The black is replaced with familiar shades of green and golden brown, and Eren's breath hitches.

"No way!" he shouts, shoving the buttons away from himself. "I'm not letting you sew buttons into my eyes!"

"But we need a yes if you want to stay here," Other Jean says, catching the buttons before they can fall from the table. "We promise you won't even feel a thing."

Eren is stuck on the first thing he said. "Stay?" he says.

"You can stay here with us," Other Levi says. "Forever. Doesn't that sound amazing? We'll cook for you, and walk with you, and you'll never be bored or ignored again."

Eren has to admit that the thought is tempting, but the thought of those buttons—of that _needle_ —anywhere near his eyes makes him want to cry.

"I-I… I need to sleep on it," he stammers. The table screeches across the floor when he shoots to his feet. Other Jean and Other Levi follow him as he backs away, towards the stairs. "I'm super tired right now." He doesn't add a fake yawn, though the urge is there. Other Levi smiles and links his arm with Other Jean's.

"Of course," he says. "This is a big decision."

"We trust you'll make the right choice," Other Jean says. "Sweet dreams, Eren."

"Goodnight," Eren says weakly, before turning and bolting up the stairs. He throws himself into the guest room, then locks the door and shoves the dresser in front of it for good measure. That done, he stumbles towards the bed and leans heavily against it, willing his knees to not give out. Fear fills him, and he makes sure the window is locked, too, before he crawls into bed and pulls the blanket over his head. It's eerily similar to what he did this morning when Jean tried to get him out of bed, but the circumstances couldn't be more different. If Other Jean appeared suddenly and tried to yank the blanket off of him, Eren is sure he's scream.

"Come on, Eren," he whispers. "Go to sleep. Sleep, sleep, _please_." And then: "God, I have to fix this."

The last things he sees before he succumbs to sleep are Jean and Levi's hurt, tear-stained faces.

"I have to fix this," he whispers.

* * *

When he wakes up, he is groggy. The blanket is still pulled over his head, forming a cocoon of heat all around him, and when he pulls it aside the cool air outside the blanket causes him to shiver. He's in the guest room, for some reason, except this guest room… has a clock.

And all at once, his memories come flooding back, and he gasps in shock. The dresser is still pushed in front of the door, and he looks at it in dismay.

"I'm still here," he whispers to himself in horror. "No, no, no, no no no no! I'm not supposed to still be here!"

He stumbles out of bed and over to the dresser, where the clock sits. It's one of those old-fashioned alarm clocks, with Roman numerals marking each segment on the face and two silver bells sitting on top of its round body, but neither of the hands are moving. The time is stuck at 3:17, and he wonders if that's AM or PM. Then he remembers that time doesn't work here like it does in his world, so the whole clock thing is kind of irrelevant anyway.

The dresser is suspiciously quiet as Eren pushes it back into place. In fact, the air itself feels suffocating and muffled, with an atmosphere akin to the type that he remembers from his mother's funeral. It makes him shiver and fills him with trepidation.

All of a sudden, he's hit with an intense desire to be home. He wants to be back in his own guest room, with its unmade bed and its lack of clocks, but the only way back home, now, is through the little door, which The Others are probably guarding. He doesn't imagine that they're too happy about him rejecting the button eyes they presented him with. As he exits the room and starts cautiously down the stairs, he wonders why they didn't just force him to take the buttons. There's two of them, and while Eren is formidable in a fight, Other Jean and Other Levi could easily overpower him if they worked together. Unless they actually couldn't, which would be another difference between them and the real Levi and Jean.

The house looks different, somehow. Eren pauses at the foot of the stairs and looks around, wondering why the house looks so unfamiliar, but the longer he stares the more sure he becomes that nothing's changed. Then it hits him: it's the shadows. The whole house looks darker, somehow, as if the shadows are creeping along the walls and floors and leeching the color out of everything. Eren shudders again and heads towards the living room.

Inside, he finds that the house isn't the only thing that's grown darker. Other Jean is seated on the couch with Other Levi in his lap, and both of them look up as he approaches. Eren is filled with anxiety at the sight of them; they look much more dangerous than before. No longer as warm and inviting as they first appeared, now their edges are sharper, their smirks more bitter, their button eyes more vicious.

"Eren," Other Levi greets. "Good morning."

"Why am I still here?" Eren asks. "I thought the only way for me to stay here forever was to sew buttons into my eyes."

"Our offer still stands, if you're changing your mind."

"Absolutely not," Eren says, backing away a step before he can catch himself. "I'm just curious, that's all."

"Careful, Eren," Other Jean says darkly. "You know what they say about curiosity and the cat, don't you?"

Other Levi smiles widely. "But to answer your question, you're right. You have to sew the buttons into your eyes in order to stay here forever. We simply extended your stay by a day." He shrugs, like it's no big deal, and Eren clenches his hands into fists, the nails digging painfully into his palms.

"I want to go home," he says.

"But, love, you _are_ home," Other Levi says. Eren takes another step away from him.

"This isn't my home," Eren says. "I hate it here."

"Is that any way to talk to your boyfriend?" Other Levi huffs.

"You're not my boyfriend," Eren says. "I want to be with the _real_ Jean and Levi, not some doll-faced imposters."

"Eren!" Other Levi exclaims, scandalized. "Apologize at once! That was unnecessary."

Eren crosses his arms, lifts his chin, and musters up his most defiant gare. "No," he says. Other Levi stands, pulling Other Jean up with him. They glare right back at Eren.

"I'll give you to the count of three," Other Levi says. Eren scoffs.

"So much for not treating me like a child," he says.

"One," Other Jean says. Eren narrows his eyes.

"Two." Uncrossing his arms, Eren purposefully turns his back to the Others and spots the little door. He heads towards it, but before he reaches it-

"Three!"

-something sharp and insanely strong grabs him around the arm and drags him away. Eren gasps and twists around to face whatever's got him. He recoils. Other Jean and Other Levi have changed. They're skeletally thin and abnormally tall, much paler than they were a moment ago, and more sharp-featured than normal, and Eren is terrified.

"Let me go!" he shouts, digging his heels into the floor, but Other Levi drags him along as easily as if he weighs nothing. He watches in wide-eyed terror as they take him down the hallway outside, towards the dead end that has a long mirror hanging on the wall.

Other Levi pushes him into the mirror and Eren closes his eyes shut reflexively, anticipating the pain of the glass shattering over his back, but to his surprise that doesn't happen. He goes _through_ the mirror, with the same amount of resistance that a hot knife encounters when going through butter, and before he knows it he's through, falling to a hard stone floor with a grunt of pain.

"You may come out," Other Levi says, "when you've learned to be a loving boyfriend."

He disappears through the wall before Eren can react. By the time he jumps to his feet and makes it to the wall, Other Levi is gone and all that's left is slightly discolored stone. Eren touches the wall gingerly, as if that'll make it any less real that he's trapped in a mirror.

"Oh, fuck," he says. His heartbeat speeds up but he forces himself to remain calm and not freak out. He turns to lean against the wall, checking out the room he's in.

It's small, though at the same time larger than what he expected a secret mirror room to be, with walls and a floor made from smooth, dark stone. He can't see the ceiling because of how dark—or maybe how high—it is. In the corner he finds a bed, old and rusty. He walks a little closer curiously, until he sees that something round and lumpy is _glowing_ underneath the blanket, and then he changes direction and heads to the opposite corner.

He's expecting the stone to be cool when he leans against it and slides down to the floor, but surprisingly it's actually warm. So warm, in fact, that Eren would swear the room was heated were it not for the lack of vents.

 _Oh god,_ he thinks, _I'm going to die here, aren't I?_ He shivers, from fear rather than cold, and pulls his knees to his chest so he can rest his folded arms on them. He buries his head in his arms and tries not to have a panic attack.

The hours pass like molasses. He counts the seconds to keep track of the time, though after the second hour he gives up. It grows hot in the room; instead of absorbing his body heat, the stone seems to reflect it back into the room, until it feels like Eren is sitting in a sauna. Half asleep, he wonders, with a sense of vague amusement, if this is what it feels like for all the pies and cakes and brownies that Jean bake in their oven at home.

He giggles deliriously at the thought. "I'm a pie," he says. He sounds loopy, like he's drunk or high or both, but he sobers instantly when he hears something that's not him. It's a voice, a quiet, otherworldly hiss that sends an icy chill of fear down his spine.

"Hush," it says, "and shush, for the Beldam might be listening."

Immediately afterwards, another voice says, "Don't be so dramatic. He's not going to know what a Beldam is."

Eren is confused but stays still, not wanting to draw attention to himself even though he's clearly already been spotted.

"Who's there?" he calls, sounding braver than he feels. He doesn't know what to focus on, until movement over on the bed catches his eye. The blanket falls aside and reveals a mass of pale, glowing, ghostly limbs that Eren recoils from, but in another moment it becomes clear that the ghostly mass is actually multiple ghosts. Four, to be precise.

The first thing he notices is their eyes—each of the ghosts has buttons for eyes—and the second thing he notices is that they're all children.

"Who are you?" he asks.

"We don't 'member our names," the smallest ghosts sighs mournfully. "But I remember my true mommy."

"He's not going to know what that means," another ghost says. She's different than the others, and not just because she appears to be the oldest. She's not as translucent as the other three, and while they haven't stopped floating restlessly around Eren, this ghost girl has stayed more or less in the same spot. And she looks annoyed.

"Hey," Eren says to get her attention. "Who are you guys? What are you doing here?"

"We were like you once," the girl sighs. "My name is…." She frowns, squeezing her eyes shut and tugging at her blue-tinted hair. She gasps. "Coraline! I'm Coraline."

"What about them?" Eren asks, gesturing to the other ghosts. They seem content to float around without paying much attention to Eren and Coraline.

"They don't remember their names," Coraline says sadly. "They'd forgotten them by the time I came here."

"How did you come here? What happened to you?" Eren asks.

Coraline's face darkens. " _She_ happened," she says. "The Beldam. The _Other Mother_."

"Other Mother? Is she like the Other Boyfriends?"

Coraline looks at him curiously. "You're an adult," she realizes. "We were children. We lived in this house with our parents and we were unhappy."

"She spied on our lives through the little doll's eyes," one of the ghost children aye suddenly.

Another chimes in: "And she saw that we weren't happy."

"So she lured us away with treasures and treats-"

"-and games to play."

"But still we wanted more."

The ghost children clasp their hands and rise up, looming larger and larger over Eren and Coraline.

"So we let her sew the buttons," they say in unison. Eren shivers despite how hot he is.

"And then," Coraline says quietly, "she ate up our lives."

The other three ghost children shudder and moan, and return to their bed. The blanket comes up to cover them and their glow is muted. Eren looks at Coraline.

"But I've never heard of an Other Mother," he says.

"You are an adult," Coraline says again. "You don't live with your mother, do you?"

"No," Eren says. "I live with my boyfriends. It sounds like this Beldam is a shapeshifter, though. Which one of them is the Beldam?"

"I don't know," Coraline says. "But it will eat your soul if you aren't careful. Do not let her sew the buttons."

"I won't," Eren says. "I'll try."

He sinks back down to the hot stone floor, sweaty and terrified, and Coraline sinks down to sit next to him. Her glow is comforting, and so is her presence. At least he's not alone anymore.

* * *

Eren doesn't know how long it's been when something changes. He's leaning against the wall that the mirror is hanging on, hoping in vain that he'll somehow fall through the other side. He's so dehydrated, all his water sweat out ages ago, that at this point he's considering trying to pee just to have something to drink. Coraline has long since disappeared, too, and Eren is worried that the heat and the isolation will make him go crazy.

"Pie," he mumbles. "Pie rhymes with die." He chuckles, a low, humorless sound that turns into a strangled yelp when something suddenly grabs him under the arms and pulls him back through the mirror.

Once on the other side, he falls to the ground and lays there, gasping for air. Other Armin hovers over him worriedly.

"Get up!" he hisses. "We don't have much time. They'll be back soon."

He pulls Eren to his feet and drapes his arm over his shoulder, supporting him as they stumble back into the living room. The little door is unguarded and it fills Eren with dread, like the suspiciously empty corridor right before the boss battle in a video game.

He struggles, but he's so weak that Other Armin drags him along easily. The living room door swings shut with a resounding _bang!_ and Eren half expects to turn around and see Other Jean or Other Levi standing there, but he and Other Armin are still alone in the room. The little door resists a little when Other Armin tugs on it, but it eventually opens. Eren peers inside; the tunnel, once so beautiful and inviting, looks dead now, drab and dreary and filled with cobwebs.

"I'll hold them off," Other Armin says. "They're too powerful for me to beat them on my own, but I can buy you some time."

Eren reaches out and grabs his sleeve. "Come with me," he pleads. Other Armin smiles sadly.

"I can't," he says. "The magic of this place is what sustains me."

He pushes Eren into the tunnel, but Eren resists him.

"Wait-" he says.

"If you're smart, you won't come back," Other Armin says urgently. "Lock the door and hide the key somewhere no one will ever find it. The door is useless without the key."

"Armin, they'll hurt you," Eren says. He looks at Other Armin with wide, terrified eyes.

"Yes," Other Armin sighs. "But they made me. At least this way they won't get you."

And he slams the door shut, just as the living room door bursts open. Eren gets one glimpse of the Others' monstrous forms, their faces twisted with rage, and its enough to get him moving. He turns and crawls through the tunnel as fast as he can.

Behind him, he hears an unholy screech. Something heavy slams into the door and shakes the entire tunnel, and Eren stumbles but keeps moving.

"Don't leave us!" the Others screech. "Don't leave us! _Don't leave us!_ We'll die without you!"

The end of the tunnel comes into view and Eren throws himself through it, landing heavily on the floor with a grunt. He scrambles to his feet and shuts the door, then rushes to the kitchen to find the key. He locks the little door, then backs away from it, panting.

He's sweaty, exhausted, and bruised, his eyes are wide, and his chest is heaving, but he feels a surge of triumph run through him. He survived. He escaped!

But Other Armin didn't. Eren has to hope that Other Armin is smart enough to evade Other Jean and Other Levi, because he really doesn't need the stress of worrying about him right now. He has other, more important things to dwell on.

The first thing he does is go to the kitchen and drain an entire water bottle. It's kind of weird that neither of his boyfriends have come to see what's going on, but he supposed they might not be back yet. His phone is still plugged into its charger next to the toaster oven and he checks it. It's just after three in the morning, which is about the time he left to go to the Other world, except it's an entire day later. Eren chokes on his water.

"What?" he gasps. _Jean,_ he remembers. _Levi. His_ real _boyfriends._ He drops his water bottle on the ground and dashes out of the kitchen, skidding and slamming into the wall in his haste to get to the stairs. He throws himself up them and bursts into his empty bedroom. "No," he whispers brokenly, his heart sinking. The bed is unmade and there are clothes strewn around on the floor. They never came home. "Oh god, no."

His knees buckle and he just barely catches himself on the edge of the bed before he falls. Crawling up the bed takes much too much effort, and he's _so_ tired by the time he makes it to the headboard. He flops down on his stomach and buries his face in a pillow, curling around it and hugging it tight. He would've stewed in his own misery for who knows how long were it not for the rough tongue that scrapes across his arm. He jolts, and looks up into a pair of irritated, slit-pupiled blue eyes.

"I fucked up," he tells the cat, his voice hoarse with barely suppressed tears. "I fucked up so bad, and they didn't come home last night, and I don't know where they are or what I'm going to do now." He lets out a dry sob, and the cat swats him on the head with one paw. "Ow! What?" he snaps. The cat hisses at him and jumps off the bed, dashing to where the other two cats are waiting for her by the door. She yowls angrily at him when he doesn't immediately follow.

With a groan, he pulls himself up and wanders after them. They lead him to the guest room, and to his surprise he finds that the bed has been made. Alert now, he watches intently as the brown cat drags something out from under the pillow.

"Jean's phone," Eren mumbles, confused. "But… if his phone is here, where are he and Levi?"

The cat moves aside so Eren can take the phone. He deftly unlocks it, having figured out Jean's password ages ago, and goes immediately to the messages. The most recent conversation is one with Levi, and he grows more and more confused as he reads it.

 **Jean: you wont believe what i found**

 **Levi: I think I can guess. I found one too**

 **Jean: im kinda freaked out**

 **Jean: like is this someones idea of a joke?**

 **Levi: If it is, it's not very funny**

 **Levi: I put mine in the kitchen with Eren's**

 **Jean: i will too when i get home**

 **Levi: Any sign of him?**

 **Jean: no, its like he just disappeared**

 **Jean: what if he never comes back?**

 **Levi: He wouldn't do that to us**

 **Levi: We'll find him Jean, don't worry**

Eren stops reading after that, not willing to read whatever else they wrote about him. He has a hunch that he knows what they found, but the thought makes dread pool in his stomach. It's with a sort of detached anxiety that he walks back to the kitchen, the cats at his heels. He goes to the drawer that holds all the keys and tugs it open slowly, anticipation making him hesitant.

Inside, he finds the familiar Eren doll with its mismatched eyes and its guileless smile, and he curls his lip in disgust. Remembering what the ghost children told him about how the Beldam spies through the doll's eyes, he takes The Doll out and places it face down on the countertop. Then, he pulls the drawer the rest of the way open, fast, like ripping off a Band-Aid. His eyes widen with horror.

"Fuck," he whispers.

Way in the back of the drawer, he finds two more dolls, two that are achingly familiar even though he's never seen them before. One has storm grey button eyes and a tiny little frown, and the other has a shaggy, dual-colored undercut and a cocky smirk. Levi and Jean. They've been taken by the Others.

"No, no, no!" Eren exclaims angrily. "This wasn't supposed to happen! I got out, I have the key; I won!"

His hands clench into fists around the dolls, and he throws them across the kitchen with a wordless shout of anger. The cats back away from him warily, their fur bristling as he paces back and forth across the room, running his hands through his hair frantically. His foot knocks into one of the dolls as he passes by, sending it spinning across the floor, and in a sudden fit of rage he scoops all three up and storms into the living room.

One match and a flick of the gas switch is all it takes to start a fire, and Eren tosses the dolls in with savage pleasure. He imagines he can hear them screaming as they curl and blacken and burn, though of course they never have said anything to him before. And now they never will.

The cats come to sit by him.

"I have to go after them," he says. The yellow tom meows lowly; a warning. Eren ignores him and gets to his feet, sending a glare towards the little door as he walks out of the room. He makes sure he has the key before he heads upstairs. He'll give himself ten minutes to pee, change his clothes, and pack a bag, and maybe eat something if he has the time.

And then, well. Then he's going to save his boyfriends.


	5. Chapter 5

"' **But how can you walk away from something and still come back to it?'**

' **Easy,' said the cat. 'Think of somebody walking around the world. You start out walking away from something and end up coming back to it.'**

' **Small world,' said Coraline.**

' **It's big enough for her,' said the cat. 'Spiders' webs only have to be large enough to catch flies.'"**

— **Neil Gaiman,** _ **Coraline**_

* * *

The cats go with him when he unlocks the little door. They seem incredibly wary, though it's understandable considering they know the dangers of the Other world as well as he does—maybe even better, since they've been journeying there for much longer than he has. Halfway through the tunnel, they speak.

"You know," the yellow tom says, "you're walking right into a trap."

"I know," Eren says.

"Then turn back," the female cat says. "You know how dangerous it is. You might not survive this with your eyes and your soul intact."

Eren shudders at the certainty in her voice, but he looks over his shoulder at her as well as he can in such close quarters.

"I love Jean and Levi more than anything else in the whole world," he says. "If you had something like that, wouldn't you do everything you could to save it?"

She doesn't respond, but she does look at the other two cats, who gaze back at her with wide eyes. The four of them are silent as they get closer to the end, until they're hit with a sudden blast of musty, saccharine air. The cats turn tail and flee back towards safety immediately, brushing past him comfortingly as they go, but Eren just steels himself and continues on. He knows exactly what he's going to find when he gets to the end, but the sight of Other Levi, towering over him with his gleaming button eyes and his twisted, too-wide smile, still sends shivers of fear down Eren's spine.

"Welcome back," Other Levi says. His hand, when he places it on Eren's shoulder to guide him to the kitchen, is cold and spider-like. Eren tries not to look at it as they walk. "You look better. Doesn't he, Jean?"

Other Jean looks up from the bacon he's frying and gives Eren a once-over, taking in his combat boots, his hunter green jacket, and the backpack slung over his shoulder. A cruel smirk twists Other Jean's features.

"Yes," he says. "Very… adventurous. Planning on doing some fighting now that you're here?"

Eren sits at the only seat at the table, where one of the Others has set out cutlery and a glass of orange juice.

"No," Eren says. His voice is calm, despite the rabbit pace his heart has managed to achieve. "I'm planning on playing a game."

* * *

" _She loved games," Coraline says suddenly, and Eren blinks blearily at her. He's lost all track of time and has no idea how long he's been in here, and he's finding it hard to focus due to the stale, muggy heat pervading the room._

" _The Beldam?" he asks. Coraline nods._

" _I thought I could challenge her for my freedom," she says. "If I beat her, she'd let me go."_

" _Beat you at what?"_

" _A game," Coraline says. "A finding things game. I was looking for ghost eyes, so that they could finally be free of this place. And my parents. She_ stole _them, you know. While I was trapped in here."_

 _Eren is silent for a moment. "And if you lost?" he asks quietly, though he already knows the answer. Coraline looks him right in the eyes, and her buttons seem to grow until they're all that Eren can focus on, dominating her pale, gaunt face._

" _I lost," she whispers, and her voice resonates through the room like thunder. "And I let her sew the buttons."_

* * *

"A game," Other Levi says, grinning maliciously. Other Jean sets a plate of bacon and eggs in front of Eren, his arm so thin and long that the plate's weight pulls it into a slight arch. "A game against who?"

"Against you," Eren answers. "If I win, you let me and the ghosts and my boyfriends go."

Other Jean laughs, a hoarse, throaty noise that reminds Eren of a car engine dying.

"Let me guess," he says. "If you lose, you'll let us sew buttons into your eyes? You've been speaking with the blue-haired girl, haven't you?"

"Even the proudest spirit can be broken," Other Levi says, "with love."

"Coraline was plenty proud," Other Jean says. Other Levi licks his lips, his tongue long and thin.

"And her spirit made the most delicious _snap_ when we broke her," he says. Eren's mouth drops open in horror and he shivers.

"Enough," he says sharply. The Others laugh at him. "Do we have a deal, or not?"

They look at each other, grinning.

"We have a deal," they say in unison.

"Good." Eren picks up his fork and stabs at the eggs on his plate. They look delicious. He hates it. "Now give me a clue."

* * *

" _They will cheat," Coraline says. "Be careful. Don't trust them. When you ask them for a clue, remember that they're trying to trick you, to beat you."_

"If _I ask them for a clue, you mean," Eren says bitterly. "I don't think I'm ever getting out of here."_

 _Coraline bristles angrily. "Don't give up hope," she says. "You're our last hope, too. If an adult can't beat them, then the other kids she goes after will have no chance."_

" _No pressure, huh?" Eren jokes weakly._

" _No," Coraline agrees, smiling. "Just the weight of the world. No big deal."_

* * *

"What makes you think you get a clue?" Other Levi asks, and laughs when Eren glares at him. "Oh, very well. Since you asked so nicely. Jean's always been better at this than I am, though. Jean, be a dear and give Eren a clue."

"Gladly," Other Jean says. He clears his throat and says:

 _Four things that are more than meets the eye,_

 _For the fifth and sixth your hardest you'll try,_

 _A pumpkin, a cricket,_

 _A hollow, a thicket,_

 _This task should be easy as pie._

The riddle makes no sense to Eren, but before he can ask them about it, they disappear out into the hallway, their footsteps sounding in his ear long after their sinister laughter fades. After a while, he realizes that the sound he's hearing isn't footsteps at all, but the rhythmic drip of the faucet in the kitchen sink.

Unnerved but unwilling to show it, he turns back to his plate and eats his food. He doesn't know when he last ate a proper meal—it was definitely before his big fight with Levi and Jean—and even though eggs and bacon aren't enough to fill him up, it settles the worst of his hunger pangs. He drains his cup of juice and leaves the kitchen.

In the study, he roots around in a drawer until he finds a pen and a blank piece of paper, and then he writes down the riddle Other Jean gave him. Brain games like this were never his strong suit, but he has a lot riding on his ability to figure this out, and he's fairly confident in his ability to perform well under pressure.

"Four things that are more than meets the eye," he mumbles to himself. That's referring to the ghost eyes, obviously, so the fifth and sixth things must mean Jean and Levi. Hopefully they're in the same place and not split up somewhere, otherwise this is going to be a lot harder than he thought.

The pumpkin, the cricket, the hollow, and the thicket could mean anything, but he's willing to bet that they're clues for the ghost eyes. Why else would they be in a group of four? He thinks hard, trying to figure out what pumpkins and crickets have to do with ghost eyes. Something about those two words in particular is sparking a memory, but he can't quite put his finger on what it is.

He folds up the paper and stuffs it into his pocket, resolving to go outside in hopes that the fresh air will help him think. Something cold and hard brushes up against his fingers in his pocket, and he frowns and pulls it out. It's the stone that Connie gave him, the strange triangular green one with the circular hole in its center. Even here and now it calms him, so he keeps it in his hand as he walks.

In the hallway outside the study, he paused, strangely hesitant about whether to go into the front yard or the back. His eyes widen. The backyard. _The garden._

"Oh!" he says. "Pumpkins and crickets!"

He can't help but pat himself on the back a little for figuring that out. There's still no sign of Other Jean or Other Levi when he passes through the dining room, then the kitchen, and finally the back door. Outside on the porch, he pauses to take a deep breath to calm his nerves. Then, he makes his way into the garden.

He doesn't know what he's expecting to find—what do ghost eyes look like, anyway?—but when he walks into the garden, he immediately notices the two figures standing on the bridge, backlit by the full moon and cast into eerie shadow. Eren's steps falter, but he steels himself and keeps going.

Once he gets closer, it becomes clear that the figures are actually Other Erwin and Other Hanji, though something seems off about them. Their normally cheerful faces are drawn down into vacant frowns, and they're swaying in the slight breeze as if they're only seconds away from toppling off the bridge and into the koi pond.

The stone in Eren's hand burns hot all of a sudden, and he tightens his grip on it.

"Hello," he calls cautiously. Other Erwin and Other Hanji perk up and turn their heads to look at him. Their jackets, which were originally almost identical to Eren's own, are now short waistcoats with long tails sticking out the back. They both shiver and Eren swears he sees a ripple shake their frames.

"Eren!" Other Hanji says. Their voice sounds distorted, pitched slightly higher and whinier than it used to be. "We didn't think you would come here so soon."

"You know I was coming, though, didn't you?" Eren says. "You're just puppets that _they_ created."

"We knew you would come," Other Erwin says. He shudders again. "You came for the ghost eyes."

"Yes," Eren says. "Do you know where I can find them?" They chuckle darkly, and this time the ripple that wracks their frames are so obvious that Eren knows he's not imagining it.

"Maybe," Other Hanji hisses. "Good luck, doll. You'll need it."

They don't shudder so much as they thrash, this time, their arms flailing around limply and their heads rolling back even as deranged smiles light up their faces. Eren quickly backs up, watching in horror as Other Erwin and Other Hanji suddenly seize up and drop to the floor. Dozens of rats explode outwards from their coats, screeching and coming towards Eren like a tidal wave of beady black eyes and sharp, crooked teeth.

His eyes widen in horror and he turns tail and flees, sprinting past plants that hiss and snap at him as he goes by. The garden gates are shut when he gets there, and they remain that way no matter how hard Eren tugs at them. He growls in frustration and dashes to the right, towards the greenhouse.

When the first rat clamps down on his leg, he screams in pain and quickly shakes it off. The next two make him stumble but he keeps his cry of pain in and his strides even. After that, it's just a blur of pain and terror as he runs. He slams shoulder first into the greenhouse door when he reaches it, pushing it open and then slamming it shut as soon as he's inside. The few rats who hitched a ride on his pants are quickly taken care of; he kicks out and they go flying off his leg to smack into the glass wall. They don't get back up.

Panting heavily, Eren backs away from the (thin, _breakable_ ) glass the rats are pounding on. There's no other way out of the greenhouse. He's trapped, and so are the ghost children and his boyfriends, unless he can figure a way out of this mess.

The stone in his palm suddenly flares, burning so hot that Eren hisses and drops it reflexively. It clatters to the floor and skids across the hideous green tiles, coming to a stop against a discarded shovel. Eren blinks at it in confusion. The floor through the hole is grey, but there wasn't a grey spot there before.

He walks over to the stone and picks it up, and, on a whim, he looks through it.

"Whoa!" he says. He pulls the stone away and the world is colored, but when he puts it back to his eye, everything he sees is grey. Not just grey, though; it's lifeless, as if all the vibrancy was sucked out of it.

Except for _that._

A single spot of red, glowing like a beacon, catches his attention. He pulls the stone away from his eye and blinks at the hulking mass of rats he's looking at. If that glowing red thing was what he needs to find, he's shit out of luck. Except, maybe he doesn't need luck.

Without looking away from the screeching, writhing pile of rats outside the greenhouse, he bends down and picks up the shovel by his foot. Questions burn in his mind—Why does the stone let him see the ghost eyes? Why did Connie have it in the first place?—but he ignores them all in favor of focusing on what he needs to do now.

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he walks over to the door and hefts the shovel.

"Here goes nothing," he says. He yanks open the door. Rats stream in instantly, swarming around him and biting at whatever exposed flesh they can find. Eren swings the shovel with all his might, reveling in the satisfying feeling of tiny bodies giving way under its force. A handful of rats go flying into the air, only to land amongst the horde and disappear.

Eren keeps the rats at bay with his shovel for as long as he can, growing more and more desperate the longer it goes on. He's bigger and more powerful than them, but they have infinitely larger numbers. He doesn't know how long he can keep this up.

Just as he's about to give up hope, he hears a single _clink!_ One of the rats he knocks into the air loses its grip on a small, marble-sized object, which goes flying into the pumpkin patch in the corner. Eren immediately abandons the futile fight against the rats and goes after it, the rats hot on his heels.

He falls to his knees and ignores the rats that scurry up his back and scratch and bite at his face. His knees are cold and damp with mud that flies into his face with the force of his desperate digging, but Eren's only focused on finding that ghost eye. He lifts the stone to his eye and looks through it, then lunges at the glowing flash of red he sees in the corner of his vision.

The rats freeze as soon as his fingers brush up against the eye. He grabs it and pulls it to his chest, ready to defend it, but to his surprise, there's nothing to defend it from. With a crackle like the earth itself is drying up, grey spreads wildfire-fast across the ground, up the walls, across everything it touches.

Only Eren is spared. He is left kneeling on the ground, covered in frozen, once-alive rats, with a strange green stone clutched in one hand and a ghost eye clutched in the other. When he stands, the rats fall off and crumble into what appears to be sand as soon as they touch the ground. Even the ones that are piled up outside the greenhouse door dissolve when Eren pushes the door hard enough through them, and he walks outside cautiously, wary of being attacked again. He doesn't trust the Others anymore, especially not after seeing what they were willing to orchestrate in order to have him fail. He wonders why his soul is so valuable to them.

The thing in his hand grows hot—not the stone this time, but the ghost eye. Eren shoves the stone into his pocket and holds the eye up, turning it this way and that to study it in the light. It's a simple red marble about the size of a gumball, nothing altogether extraordinary or spectacular. Eren would've passed right by it without a second thought if he saw it in any other context. He thinks he can see a familiar ghostly reflection in the marble. The tall ghost girl, maybe, a suspicion which is confirmed when a voice speaks softly into the air around him.

"Keep on!" the ghost girl says. "There are three eyes still lost."

A short, simple message, but one that fills Eren with determination. He shoves the eye into his backpack and hikes back towards the house. Halfway through the garden, he pauses and looks back at the greenhouse, remembering the riddle. Nothing in the clue said anything about rats… except hadn't Erwin said something about feeding crickets to them as a treat? Cricket was in the clue; it was an obscure reference to a passing comment that Eren wouldn't have remembered if he didn't have a mind for details, but it's just the sort of conniving thing Other Levi and Other Jean would do.

Pumpkin was also in the clue, but he's already destroyed the garden, so it can't have anything to do with the pumpkins in the greenhouse. He perks up. Those pumpkins, he remembers, were showed to him by Connie and Sasha. It's as good a lead as any, and it makes sense for the neighbors to have something to do with hiding ghost eyes.

He walks through the garden and up the path towards the house. The crisp crunch of damp grass startled him at first; he was used to walking over the dead, colorless grass, which felt like sand under his boots. He looks up at the sky as he walks, and he notices that the moon is still full. He wonders how he could've ever believed this place was anything other than evil.

A flash of yellow out of the corner of his eye catches his attention when he gets to the house, and he turns and finds the tomcat sitting neatly on the railing outside of Other Jean and Other Levi's front door.

"I didn't think you'd come back," Eren says.

"I wasn't going to," the cat says. "But I figured I'd try and help at least a little bit."

"Well, that was brave if you," Eren says, only a little sarcastic. The cat twitches an ear and looks unimpressed.

"Be careful in that house," he says, standing and hopping to the ground in one neat movement. He begins walking away, and Eren calls after him.

"Wait, I thought you were going to help me!"

The cat pauses and looks over his shoulder at Eren with what he imagines might be distaste.

"I don't think so," he says. "Not here, at least. There are dogs in that house."

He lopes away, and Eren doesn't stop him this time. He'd forgotten about the dogs that live here. If the other time he came here was any indication, there are way too many dogs for him to fight off on his own like he did with the rats; a discarded shovel isn't going to cut it this time. He's hesitant to go in, but the stone in his hand grows hot, which he takes to mean that there's a ghost eye inside, so he doesn't really have a choice.

Slowly, he walks down the stairs and opens the door. He half expects it to squeak, and even though it doesn't he still feels like he's trapped in a horror movie as he walks into the dark apartment.

He didn't bring his phone with him because he read somewhere that even having it with you can be a distraction, and distractions are the last thing he needs right now. Instead of the flashlight app on his phone, he brought an actual flashlight, something he had to dig around under the kitchen sink to find. He flicks the beam on aims it at the floor in front of him so he doesn't run into anything as he makes his way over the curtain that separates the circus tent from the rest of the house.

The circus music is playing, slow and distorted like a scratched record in a turntable. It makes the hair on Eren's arms stand up, and he carefully sweeps the beam around the tent to look for danger before he makes his way in.

The bleachers are filled with dogs, but they're not moving. Eren frowns and peers a little closer, then recoils when he realizes that the dogs are stuffed. _Taxidermied,_ his mind supplies. How morbid.

He carefully steps away from the bleachers and looks around warily for Other Sasha and Other Connie. The music is really freaking him out and makes him feel like he's being watched, but he doesn't want to turn around, afraid of what he'll find if he does.

He hears footsteps behind him just before the music cuts and he spins around, brandishing his flashlight like a weapon, but it's just Other Sasha, dressed in her sparkly blue unitard with her hair loose around her shoulders. She saunters up to him, the light gleaming off her button eyes and turning them white with the glare every time she turns her head.

"Eren," she says. "Funny meeting you here."

"Cut the act," Eren says. "I know you're being controlled by Other Levi and Other Jean. I'm here for the ghost eye. Know where I can find it?"

She holds her hand up. Sitting in the center of her palm is another marble, smaller than the other one and a deep green color.

"Is this what you're looking for?" she asks. Eren lifts the stone to his eye and looks through it.

"Yes," he says. "Can I have it?"

Other Sasha ignores him and folds her hands behind her back, sidling up to him. When she puts her hands on his shoulders, the marble is gone. Eren leans away from her uncomfortably.

"You could stay here, you know," she whispers conspiratorially, as if that isn't the whole reason they're in this situation in the first place. "Don't you want that? Don't you want people to pay attention to you?"

She slides around so she's behind him, her arm still draped over his shoulders. She toys with a lock of his hair absentmindedly.

"We could have a lot of fun here," she purrs, her hand skimming lower, over his collarbone and down towards his chest. He grabs her wrist tightly and jerks out of her grip, turning to glare at her.

"I'm gay," he says, "first of all. Secondly, I would never fuck anything with button eyes."

"Again, you mean?" she says, tipping her head to the side. Eren flushes, and she grins at him. "You have to admit that you had fun that night. Wouldn't you like to do that whenever you wanted?"

"People can't always get what they want," Eren snaps. "Life is about more than just having fun all the time. And stop trying to bribe me with sex, because it's not going to work. Just give me the ghost eye."

Other Sasha frowns sharply. She flicks her wrist and the marble appears, held carelessly aloft between two of her fingers.

"We want you to stay, Eren," she coos. "We can't give you this eye. We hope you understand."

"Who's 'we'?" Eren asks, annoyed. Other Sasha gestures up towards the ceiling with a sweeping gesture, and a spotlight turns on with a loud buzz and follows the movement of her arm. It comes to a stop on one of the ladders, where Other Connie is barely hanging on with one hand and one foot. He waves to the audience like they're adoring fans. Eren gasps when the dogs suddenly come to life and start barking madly. They sound rabid, like they'd gladly kill Other Connie if given the chance, but he just continues smiling and waving.

"Connie!" Other Sasha calls. "Ready?"

"Ready!" Other Connie calls.

"Ready for what?" Eren asks warily. He's regretting not bringing his shovel with him. Other Sasha turns to him, her mouth forming a grotesque grin that literally splits her face in half.

"Ready to die," she says in a husky, gravelly voice. Eren lets out a choked yelp and stumbles away from her, and while he's off balance Other Sasha turns and launches the marble into the air.

"No!" Eren cries. But Other Connie leaps off the ladder and catches the ghost eye in midair, then grabs onto a trapeze bar that comes out of nowhere to catch him. The wires grow longer and longer as Other Connie comes towards them, until he's low enough to grab Eren before he can react and pull him up into the air. The circus music bursts out of nowhere again, mixing with the barking to form an overwhelming cacophony of noise. Eren yells and struggles in Other Connie's grip.

"Let me go!" he demands.

"If you wish," Other Connie says casually. At the apex of his arc, he releases Eren's wrists, sending him flying up towards the ceiling, screaming the whole way. Eren flails for something to grab on to but he's all alone in the air. He screws his eyes shut as he falls back towards the ground, his stomach lurching up into his throat and the wind whistling through his hair.

Just before he lands in the middle of the audience of dogs, Other Sasha swoops down on her own trapeze bar and snatches him out of the air. Eren clings to her, terrified as she cackles in his ear.

"We're having fun here, right?" she says. Her voice is back to normal but her lips are still stretched unnaturally wide, and Eren looks away from her. He notices Other Connie swinging along next to them on his own bar, ready to catch Eren should he fall again. An idea hits him suddenly, a half-assed, dangerous plan that would have Mikasa and Jean pulling at their hair in frustration if they were here.

The type of plan that always works out for him.

Eren fumbles with his jacket pocket, searching for the green stone. He pulls it out just as Sasha lets go of him, deftly flipping him in the air and catching him by his ankles. All of the blood immediately rushes to his head and he lets out a whimper, but he still has enough presence of mind to lift the stone to his eye and look over at Other Connie. That green glow lights up his vision and, satisfied, Eren shoves the stone back into his pocket. Now comes the hard part.

He looks up as well as he can at Other Sasha, mentally working out angles and the force of gravity and cursing his high school self for not paying more attention in physics class. When they reach the top of their arch again, Eren takes advantage of the momentary weightlessness to kick Other Sasha in the face as hard as he can. She shrieks in rage and pain when his boot connects with her nose, but even though Eren hears a sickening crunch no blood gushes forth like he was expecting. He kicks again and again until she finally releases him, screeching wordlessly at him the whole time.

Eren plummets like a rock, so fast that he can't even scream, but he has faith in Other Connie. Sure enough, almost as soon as Other Sasha releases him, another pair of hands grabs him and pulls him into another upward arc. Eren looks up at Other Connie, unnerved by the blank look on his face, but he can see a little marble-sized bulge under his costume, right over his heart.

WIth absolutely no preamble, Eren shoves his hand into the leotard and tries to grab the ghost eye, but Other Connie screams and bucks madly, unbalancing the trapeze and slowing their flight in an attempt to fight Eren off. Eren has the advantage of being able to use his hands, though. He feels Other Connie's grip on his backpack straps slipping, so in a desperate last bid, he lunges upwards as best he can and grabs Other Connie's arm. Letting gravity pull him down, he yanks as hard as he can on Other Connie's arm; it comes free of its socket with a disgusting pop, and Other Connie lets out a blood-curdling scream.

As soon as his hands touch the ghost eye, that same grey lifelessness spreads quickly outwards, starting at Other Connie's heart and then shooting up the trapeze wires to the ceiling before spreading down the tent walls. Remembering just how breakable the grey things can get once the lifelessness does its job, Eren quickly latches onto the trapeze instead of Other Connie, just in the nick of time. No sooner do his hands grab the bar than a newly lifeless Other Connie drops, plummeting all the way down to be smashed to sand in the bleachers.

The dogs attack the pieces immediately, tearing at them savagely until the greyness overtakes them, too. Soon, only Eren is left, clinging desperately to a trapeze bar with a marble in one hand. He waits until the trapeze makes it back to the platform at the top of the ladder before finally letting go, his fingers stiff and almost unresponsive from fear. He drops to his hands and knees and throws up over the side of the platform, hot tears stinging his eyes and sliding down his cheeks to drip off his chin.

Panting, he wipes his mouth and sits back against the pole, looking around the tent with wide eyes. At least that fucking music stopped.

The marble in his hand grows warm, and he lets it rest flat on his palm. It's the little ghost boy, this time.

"Bless you, you found me!" he says. His button eyes seem to glow with happiness. "Their web is unravelling!"

* * *

Eren doesn't know how much longer it is when he finally stumbles out of the apartment. With his eyes firmly on his own feet, he doesn't notice anything off at first, until a familiar flash of yellow catches his eye and forces him to look up. He sees the cats first—all three of them—but then he looks around and stops dead in his tracks at the sight of the world unravelling.

Literally.

"What the _hell_?" he gasps. Even as he watches, a tree in the front yard unwinds a little more, like a ball of pixelated green yarn. He hurries to the cats. "What's going on?"

"Your breath stinks," the yellow female cat says.

"I threw up," Eren says quickly. "But seriously, what's going on? What happened to the world?"

Even the sky is off, a little less defined than it was when he was last out here. The full moon looks like a blurry glitch, way up above them.

If cats could shrug, Eren's sure these three would.

"They made the world," the brown one says, "to please you. You're beating them at their own game now. Literally."

Eren looks back at the tree. "That's terrifying," he says.

"We're glad you finally understand," the female cat says dryly.

"What are you guys doing here?" Eren asks. "I thought you wouldn't follow me here."

"We have our reasons," the female says mysteriously.

"We fucking hate the Beldam," the yellow male says. The female hisses at him, and Eren cracks a weak, half-hearted smile at their banter.

"She will die," the brown cat says with certainty. "We've come to help you make sure of that."

Eren shivers at the emotionlessness in his voice, but he can't deny that he's not glad to have allies here.

"I still have two ghost eyes to find," he says, "and the real Jean and Levi."

"Are you sure you want to save those two?" the tomcat asks. "You three didn't exactly part on good terms, last time you were together."

Eren glares. "I'm not going over this again," he says. "I'm saving them, with or without your help."

"Okay," the cat sighs. "Where to next, then?"

Eren roots around in his backpack until he finds the paper with the riddle written on it. A hollow and a thicket, that's where he has to look next. Well, thicket is easy to interpret, at least. He bites his lip, but his eyes are grim when he says, "I'm going to have to fight Other Armin."

* * *

The walk to the well is mostly silent. The cats aren't the most social creatures in the first place, but Eren's preoccupied with his thoughts anyway. He's worried about what he'll encounter when he finally finds Other Armin, because on the one hand, Other Armin's kind of a twink and Eren could probably beat him up without question. On the other hand, Eren also thought that about Other Connie and almost died on a trapeze.

It's kind of eerie being out in the woods at night. The moon is bright, but that just casts misshapen shadows over everything, and Eren feels himself growing more and more tense the longer they walk. When they finally reach the clearing, he speedwalks as fast as he can without straight up running into the center of the clearing, carefully avoiding the circle of mushrooms that marks the well.

Once again, he pulls out the green stone and peers through it, looking specifically at the woods where he first met the real Armin. Way back in the trees, he sees a very faint pink glow. He swallows and starts making his way over, the cats trailing along behind cautiously. The underbrush gets thicker and thicker the farther into the woods they walk, until eventually, it's so impenetrable that wading through it is like wading through quicksand. Spiny, thorny quicksand. If this is how Armin gets to the Hunter's House, Eren can totally see why he gets stuck every time.

It's not difficult to find Other Armin; he's standing in the middle of a thicket, looking down at his trapped legs mournfully but otherwise not moving. Eren pauses a good distance away and looks through the stone again. The ghost eye is being clenched tight in Other Armin's fist, which means Eren will have to get closer if he wants to get it. _All I have to do is touch it,_ he reminds himself.

"Be careful," one of the cats hisses at him.

"No, really?" Eren mutters sarcastically as he edges towards Other Armin. The blond looks up as Eren approaches, and Eren blanches. Other Armin's face is completely expressionless and his skin is grey and lifeless. Not like what happens after Eren touches the ghost eyes, but pallid, like Other Armin hasn't been sleeping or eating enough.

"Eren," Other Armin says quietly, and Eren is filled with sadness. He actually _likes_ Armin, and he likes Other Armin, too, and he hates the fact that this fucked up world is using his neighbors to traumatize him.

"I don't suppose," Eren says with no hope, "that you'd just give up the ghost eye, would you?"

Other Armin smiles sadly, which Eren takes to mean no, but to his surprise, Other Armin reaches out, his hand flat with the ghost eye sitting on his palm. Eren hesitates.

"They can't control me fully," Other Armin says. "I'm not a puppet like the others."

"But why?" Eren says. Other Armin shrugs.

"I think," he says, "that they made me too smart. Or too human. Either way, I don't want to hurt you, and I'm not going to. They can't make me."

It's the conviction in his voice that eventually convinces Eren to walk up to him and take the ghost eye. Still, he pauses with his hand hovering over Other Armin's.

"Where's the last eye, and my boyfriends?" he asks. "I don't know what the hollow has to do with anything, and they never even gave me a clue to find my parents."

The thorns at Other Armin's feet shift and begin to move, slithering like snakes up Other Armin's legs. He and Eren look on in horror.

"They're listening," Other Armin says. "Quick, take the eye!"

"But I need help," Eren says. "I don't know if I can do this on my own."

"You're not alone," Other Armin says, somewhat frantically. "You have those cats. Now take the marble!"

"Armin, please!" Eren cries desperately. The thorns are up to his chest now, and are beginning to wrap around his extended arm.

"Don't make me throw this at you," Other Armin says. "Use your stone! The last ghost eye is really close to here, and that clue they gave you is for your boyfriends, too. Think, Eren. I know you can do it."

"Armin," Eren says, but Other Armin has apparently had enough. With a huge grunt of effort, he yanks his arm out of the thorns and presses the marble to Eren's chest. Eren's hand comes up to clutch at it automatically, and as soon as his fingers brush the ghost eye the grey bursts forth and races across everything it touches. Other Armin is the first thing to turn grey, his face left frozen with a small, sad smile on it. Eren looks at him in horror. His fingers are caught in Other Armin's, but when he pulls them free the entire arm breaks off and dissolves into sand.

"Eren," one of the cats calls. "Eren, we have to go!"

With some reluctance, Eren turns and follows the cats as they race out of the forest. He doesn't want to just leave Other Armin here—he might've been the only one in this place who actually gave a shit about Eren, and it feels wrong to abandon his body in the woods. But he does, because while Other Armin might have been a good friend, it's already too late for him, and he still has a ghost eye to find and two boyfriends to save.

At least the underbrush is easier to cut through, now.

He notices with confusion that the grey stopped at the treeline, right at the edge of the clearing. He pauses, looking around as if that'll give him a clue as to why the grey stopped. Except… Other Armin may have already told him. A hollow, huh?

Shoving the marble—the other unnamed ghost girl, which means the last child to find is Coraline—into his backpack with the others, Eren pulls out the stone and peers through it, looking down at the ground. He's only mildly surprised to see a faint yellow glow coming from way below the earth.

"Fuck," he says emphatically.

"What?" the brown cat asks. "What 'fuck'? Why 'fuck'?"

"The last eye," Eren explains grimly. "It's at the bottom of the well."

"Fuck," says the cat.

"How are you going to get it?" the yellow tom asks.

"I don't know," Eren says. "If I had a magical magnet and some string I could lower it down and get it that way."

"A magical magnet and some string?" the cream-colored cat asks dubiously.

"I'm a fantasy writer," Eren says defensively. "My thing is my strange imagination."

"Okay, you know what?" the tomcat says. "Open up the well. I'm going in to get your stupid ghost eye."

"What?" Eren says, surprised. "But how are you supposed to get back up?"

"I'll climb," the cat says. "Cats are very good climbers, unlike humans. That thing is made of dirt, so my claws should be able to pierce it with no problem."

"What if the whole well isn't made of dirt?" Eren asks. "And what if there's water at the bottom and the ghost eye is, like, six feet underwater?"

"We'll cross that problem when we get there," the cat says. He pads over to the well and sits next to the mushrooms, giving Eren a meaningful look. With no other option, Eren goes to find a stick to pry the well open with.

"This is a horrible idea," the brown cat says.

"We don't have any other choice," the tom says.

"I agree," says the she-cat. "Eren needs to find this eye in order to defeat the Beldam."

"Why do we even care so much?" asks the brown cat. "We could leave here and never come back. This doesn't have to be our problem."

Eren finally finds a large enough stick and heads back to the well, staying quiet in a futile attempt at pretending that he's not listening intently to the cats' conversation.

"Remember what our ancestor said," the she-cat says. "He died with only one regret: that he didn't help the girl."

"I know," the brown cat sighs. He butts his head against the yellow tom's shoulder. "Be careful."

"I will," the tom says. "Have some faith in my abilities."

"I do," the brown cat says. "I just don't have faith in the stability of an old dirt well."

"Fair enough," says the tom. He nods once to both of the other cats, then gets to his feet and carefully lowers himself into the well, back feet first. It's not how cats usually climb down things, but these cats have human-like intelligence and can speak English, so Eren supposes he shouldn't be surprised by anything they do.

He props the well cover up with the stick and settles in close to the edge of the well to watch the tom's slow descent. The other two cats join him, settling in close to his side with their tails tucked around their paws. None of them say anything as the tom makes his steady way down into the well. Soon, he is so far down that his light yellow fur isn't even visible anymore.

The seconds pass like minutes and the minutes pass like hours, and Eren is restless. He takes to pacing around the clearing, looking back at the house every so often, as if to make sure it's still there. He imagines that this is what cigarette addicts feel like when they're itching for a smoke, but he's never been a smoker and he has no outlet for the restlessness that's making his fingers twitch and his skin itch.

With no other way to tell the time, he would normally rely on the movement of the moon to mark the passage of the hours, but that moon never seems to move or change shape, so he ends up just lying on his back in the dirt, watching the sky. His foot is jiggling back and forth and his finger is tapping a restless rhythm against his hand where they're both folded against his stomach. The cats don't seem to have this problem; they haven't moved an inch since the tomcat first went in, except to occasionally flick their tail or an ear.

Ages and ages later, they both perk up, staring intently into the well. Eren notices and goes to sit by them, and soon he hears what they hear: the shuffling, rustling sound of the cat climbing back up the well.

"Did you find the ghost eye?" Eren calls down. The only answer he receives is a low growl that echoes up the well. The other two cats give him unimpressed looks.

Soon enough, the cat is pulling himself over the edge of the well, and the other two immediately rush over to him, sniffing him all over. All three of them are purring loudly and Eren hangs back, giving them a little time to themselves.

The tomcat pads up to him and drops something from his mouth. Eren grins, and picks up the little yellow marble from the ground.

As the grey spreads across the ground, Eren says, "When we get home, I'm going to feed you every night for the rest of your lives."

"Well hold you to that," the female cat says, sounding pleased. The ground suddenly quakes, like an earthquake just hit, except if Other Jean and Other Levi created this world, it shouldn't get earthquakes. Eren, legs wide and arms out to brace himself as best he can, looks around wildly, thinking that maybe a tree fell somewhere in the forest. He turns and gapes in horror at the sky, which has become even more pixelated than before. And the grey, which before now always stopped at certain invisible boundaries, is spreading up _into the sky_.

"Holy fucking shit," Eren says.

"Back to the house!" the she-cat says sharply. "Now, let's go!"

Eren doesn't need to be told twice. He turns and sprints down the path that leads back to the Hunter's House, the cats dashing furiously along at his side. Behind him, there's a sound like glass shattering and falling out of a frame, a deceptively delicate twinkling sound that fills Eren with dread. He doesn't want to turn around and look at what's going on, but the destruction is spreading faster than he can run. He watches as the sky in front of him begins falling apart, pixels dropping down to the ground like shimmery black falling stars. He runs faster.

He's wheezing for breath by the time he gets to the house, his underarms damp with sweat and his chest on fire. The poor cats aren't faring much better, except for the brown one, who had been lagging behind until Eren scooped him up and settled him in the hood of his jacket as he ran. The cat is still there now, one paw on Eren's shoulder to balance himself as Eren throws himself up the porch stairs and through the front door. Once the cats are through, he slams it shut and locks it for good measure.

"What the hell is happening out there?" he gasps out breathlessly.

"The Beldam's power is weakening," the brown cat says, "because you've got all four eyes. You're winning the game. If you were to lose, that power would return."

Eren leans against the front door and leans his weight into his knees as he tries to calm his heartbeat.

"Where does the Beldam get that power from in the first place?" Eren asks.

"Are you sure you want to know?" the brown cat asks.

"Yes," Eren says firmly. The cat shifts unconformity in Eren's hood.

"I believe one of the ghost children mentioned something about how the Beldam ate up their lives?" he says. Eren cocks his head, confused, until the meaning sinks in and he blanches.

"They meant that literally?" he exclaims. The cats hiss at him to be quiet, and he ducks his head. "That's insane," he whispers. "So the ghost kids' souls are actually trapped in these marbles?"

"Yes," the female cat says. "And now you have to find the other humans if you want to save them. Have you gotten your breath back?" Eren nods. "Then let's go. The Beldam shouldn't know we're back here."

"Where else would we be?" Eren asks as he follows the cats further into the house.

"Out there," the brown cat says mysteriously. He reaches out a paw and bats at the peeling wallpaper as they walk by, drawing Eren's attention to it. Actually, now that he's paying attention, it seems that the whole house is falling apart. The wallpaper is peeling, the walls themselves appear to be sagging, and the floorboards are cracked and pulling apart from each other. If the entirety of the world outside the house has already unraveled, Eren can only imagine how much energy it's taking to keep this house together.

"Where could the humans be?" the female cat asks. "Other Armin said that the Beldam gave you a clue about that."

"I'm not sure," Eren says. "I don't think so, at any rate. The only parts of the clue that actually told me anything useful were the parts about the ghost eyes. Everything else is useless."

"What are the other parts?" The brown cat asks.

"'Four things that are more than meets the eye'," Eren recites from memory. "'For the fifth and sixth your hardest you'll try.' And then it says something about this task being easy as… pie."

He paused in the middle of the hallway and looks off to the side, towards the kitchen. The two cats on the ground stop when he does and look up at him curiously.

"What is it?" the brown cat asks.

"I think I know where they are," Eren says. He sets off, his strides long and fast so that the cats have to trot a little to keep up. They pause before entering the kitchen, but when there's no sign of Other Levi or Other Jean, they head inside.

They do the same thing before entering the dining room and then the hallway outside of the dining room, and eventually, they stand at the end of the hall. A long, full body mirror hangs on the wall in front of them.

"That was smart, hiding them in here," the female cat says. "What helped you to figure it out?"

"Pie," Eren says, grinning. He reaches out a hand but stops with his fingers mere millimeters away from the glass.

"What's wrong?" the tomcat asks. "If you think they're in there, go get them."

"I don't want to get stuck again," Eren whispers, remembering the sweltering heat and the fear that he'd rot in there forever. "There's no one to pull me out this time."

"As long as you go in there willingly, you'll be able to get back out," the cat says. "Otherwise the Beldam wouldn't be able to go in and out."

"And if you _do_ get stuck in there, we'll pull you out," the brown cat says, carefully pulling himself onto Eren's shoulder before hopping to the floor.

"We will?" asks the female.

"We will," says the brown cat. Eren is still dubious, but eventually, the thought of Jean and Levi going through what he did is what gives him the courage to walk through the mirror.

He's not being pulled through really fast, this time, so he actually has time to fully appreciate the strange feeling of pressing through the mirror. It's as easy as walking through water but the resistance feels different, somehow. It's thinner than water, and it feels chillier in a distinctly metallic way.

But then he's through, and he stumbles as he lands but keeps his footing. The little room looks exactly the same as it did the last time he was here—cramped, dark, and swelteringly hot—with two noticeable exceptions. One, all of the ghosts are under the blanket on the bed in the corner, and their glow is distinctly dimmer than last time. And two, Levi and Jean are sitting in the corner opposite the bed, sweaty and wide-eyed but alive and unhurt.

Eren's heart skips a beat.

"Jean!" he exclaims happily. "Levi!"

"Eren!" they say in unison, scrambling to their feet and running to meet him. The three of them collide in the center of the room, a mess of sweat and tears. Eren laughs wetly against Jean's neck and clenches his fist in Levi's shirt, feeling someone—one of them, or maybe both of them—pressing frantic kisses into his hair.

"How did you guys get here?" Eren asks, pulling back slightly so he can look at them. They look like shit, frankly, with dark circles under their wide, too bright eyes and their skin glistening with sweat, but right now, they're the most beautiful sight he's ever seen. He watches their eyes rove hungrily over his face and imagines that they must be thinking the same thing about him.

"We don't know," Jean says. "We found those dolls and then we saw that dumb door glowing and then we just kind of woke up here."

"Eren, we're so sorry we didn't believe you," Levi says. In all his years of knowing Levi, Eren's rarely heard him apologize, so it takes him off guard and it's a few moments before he responds.

"It's okay," he says thickly. "I wouldn't have believed me either. At least you do now, right?"

Jean chuckles, his own eyes filling with tears the longer he looks at Eren. "Stop crying, you loser," he says with no heat. "You know I'm a fucking sympathy crier."

"Are you sure it's me who's the loser?" Eren teases, but he wipes his tears on his sleeve and gets to his feet, pulling Jean and Levi with him. "Come on. Let's get out of this place."

He twines his fingers with theirs and leads the way to the wall that leads out. If he hesitates he's going to doubt himself and talk himself out of it, so he barely pauses before walking into the wall. To his surprise, he passes through easily, and he comes out on the other side with his boyfriends in tow. They look extremely uncomfortable—Jean, definitely, and Levi as much as any expression ever shows on his face—but unharmed still, so Eren turns his attention to the cats.

They're sitting against the far wall, lined up in a row, though they get to their feet when Eren approaches.

"You found them," the brown cat says, sounding pleased.

"They smell like fear," the tomcat adds.

"Those cats can talk?" Jean asks from behind Eren.

"Only in this world," Eren says without turning around. Then to the cats, he says, "I'd appreciate it if you didn't smell my boyfriends."

"Well, it's not like I can help it," the cat grumbles. "Tell them to stop being afraid."

"Fuck off," Levi snaps. "I don't have to take shit from an animal that licks its own penis."

The cat hisses and his hackles raise, and Eren reaches out and scratches him behind the ears in an attempt to calm him down. He's surprised when it works, though the cat continues to glare at Levi.

"Those are the same cats from home, aren't they?" Jean asks, coming up behind Eren. His arm wraps around Eren's waist, and Eren doesn't have to look to know that Jean is extending his free hand behind him for Levi to take. "What are your names?" he asks the cats.

"Cats don't have names," the female says.

"Why not?" Jean asks. "How do you tell each other apart?"

"We just can," she says. "We already know ourselves and each other, so there's no reason for us to give each other names."

"As interesting as this is," Levi interrupts dryly, "we have other things to be worrying about right now. Like how we're going to get out of here, for instance?"

"Well just get out through the little door," Eren says.

"We can't," Levi says. Jean's eyes widen.

"Oh, no, I forgot about that," he says.

"What is it?" Eren asks. He hates being out of the loop.

"Eren, they locked the door and one of them swallowed the key," Levi says. "We don't know which one."

"Plus," Jean adds, looking down the hallway, "it looks like they're back." They all turn and follow Jean's gaze, and they see a sliver of light coming from underneath the closed living room door.

"Fuck," Eren and Levi say at the same time.

"Now what do we do?" the brown cat asks, tail whipping back and forth nervously.

"Now we fight," Eren says. "There's two of them and three of us. Six if you include the cats. We could totally take 'em."

He only manages to take two steps before someone grabs one of his backpack straps and yanks him back.

"Are you insane?" Jean hisses. "You can't fight them! They're huge and freaky and look like they're made of death itself."

"A suicide mission is not how I'm going out," Levi says. "Especially not when the whole point of attacking them would be to escape."

"So what, then?" Eren asks.

"You know," says the female cat, "you haven't finished your game yet. You have the eyes, but the Beldam probably doesn't know that you found the other humans."

She sounds like she's trying to make a specific point, so Eren frowns and lifts a hand to his mouth and thinks while everyone watches him carefully. After a minute or two, he nods.

"Got it," he says. "Guys, I have a plan."

* * *

Eren walks into the living room with the two slighter cats perched on his shoulders and the bulkiest one—the tomcat—settled in his arms. He's not prepared for the sight that greets him.

If the rest of the house was unraveling, the living room is already unraveled. The whole room is shrouded in shadow and appears to be falling apart at the seams—the wallpaper is peeling, the fire in the fireplace is green and… diluted, almost, and the furniture is warped and twisted like plastic left out in the heat for too long. It doesn't look real, but like the animated setting in a horror movie.

The room has nothing on the Others themselves, though. They appear to have grown even taller than they were when Eren last saw them, and even skinnier, too. Their skin is cracked white porcelain, their arms and legs—way too many fucking legs—are made of sewing needles, and their features are almost grotesquely sharp. They look like monstrous spiders, and Eren can't hold back a horrified gasp when he sees them.

"So," Other Levi says quietly, "you're back. And you brought vermin with you." He sounds a little confused.

"No," Eren says. "I brought friends."

Other Levi makes a disgusted sound in the back of his throat.

"Eren," Other Jean coos, unfolding his sharp needle-pointed legs and standing in one swift motion. His button eyes, Eren is surprised to see, are black, and so are Other Levi's once he checks. "Eren, why are you doing this? You know all we ever wanted was to love you."

"Love me?" Eren says incredulously. "Eat my soul, you mean."

"Eren, think of who told you that," Other Levi says, coming up to Eren and letting the needles of his hand trail lightly across his cheek. Eren jerks out of his reach and tightens his grip on the shivering cat in his arms. "It was the ghost children, wasn't it? You can't trust them, Eren. Their memories are faded and unreliable."

"I think the fact that they were locked up in the same place where you locked me up says a lot," Eren says defiantly. "If you love me, you have a very funny way of showing it. And anyway," he continues, "I trust them more than I trust you."

The Others scowl, the cracks on their porcelain faces stretching with the expression.

"We take it you're set on finishing this game, then?" Other Jean says.

"Of course," Eren replies. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the ghost eyes, holding them out in one hand. Other Levi and Other Jean crowd a little closer and look at the eyes with hungry expressions. Eren just barely manages to snatch his hand back in time to avoid Other Levi's grab for the eyes. "Not so fast," he says. "We're not done here, are we?"

Other Jean makes a disgusted sound in the back of his throat.

"No, I suppose not," he says. "You still need to find your _real_ boyfriends."

"I don't need to find them," Eren says. "I already know where they are."

Other Jean and Other Levi laugh lightly.

"Well?" Other Levi says. "Produce them."

"I can't," Eren says, "because they're locked up." He shifts the cat to one arm so he can point. Other Jean and Other Levi follow his gaze with smug, sharp-toothed grins on their faces. "They're behind that little door."

* * *

 **One more chapter after this and then we'll be done!**


	6. Chapter 6

" **The light that came through the picture window was daylight, real golden late-afternoon daylight, not a white mist light. The sky was a robin's-egg blue, and Coraline could see trees and, beyond the trees, green hills, which faded on the horizon into purples and grays. The sky had never seemed so** _ **sky,**_ **the world had never seemed so** _ **world**_ **."**

— **Neil Gaiman, _Coraline_**

* * *

The Others' laughter is a harsh, grating sound that makes Eren and the cats let out small sounds of disgust.

"Behind the door, you say?" Other Levi says with a cruel smirk. He leans forward and coughs and hacks until a familiar key falls out of his mouth and into his hand. Eren watches, his heart beating a mile a minute in his chest, as Other Levi sticks the key into the lock and turns it. The door opens with an ominous creak, revealing, of course, the dusty, faded, _empty_ tunnel.

"You're wrong, Eren," Other Jean sing-songs, coming closer to run one of his needle fingers gently down the bridge of Eren's nose. The cats in Eren's arms and on his shoulders are practically vibrating with fear and discomfort, and Eren loosens his grip on the tomcat. Other Levi joins them.

"And now," he coos slowly, "you're going to stay here with us, forever."

Eren takes a deep breath in. "No," he says slowly, "I'm _not_!" The cats launch themselves off of him and onto the Others, who shriek and stumble backwards. Eren looks behind him and is glad to see Levi and Jean already running towards the open door. While the Others are distracted by the viciously spitting, hissing, clawing cats, Eren carefully edges around them and makes a break for the door. Jean's already inside and Levi's leaning out with his hand outstretched and terror etched onto his face.

Eren's almost to the door when something hits him in the center of his back, knocking him to the floor. The brown cat, which one of the Others must have thrown at him, yowls angrily at the Others, then darts past Levi and Jean and disappears into the tunnel. The other two cats are quick to follow and Eren looks behind him with dread settling in the pit of his stomach, expecting to see Other Jean and Other Levi heading towards him.

Instead, he's surprised to see them both moaning in pain with their hands clasped over their eyes. Eren sees a familiar black button on the floor next to them and understands; the cats blinded them by clawing out their buttons.

"Wicked boy!" Other Levi screams, yanking his hands away from his face and whipping his head around wildly, as if hoping to somehow see Eren. Other Jean is quiet, his head slowly turning this way and that. Eren realizes with a jolt that he's listening for them.

"Eren, come on!" Jean hisses quietly. But not quietly enough.

Both of the Others snap their heads up, their cracked, eyeless faces pointing straight towards Eren, Levi, and Jean.

"Gotcha," Other Levi says.

"Go!" Eren shouts, scrambling to his feet and dashing towards the door again. He doesn't look back and so he doesn't know what, exactly, Other Levi or Other Jean does, but one minute he's running across flat ground, and the next the floorboards are shattering into dust beneath his feet. Below them is an empty, white nothingness, the remains of the world that the Others created for him, and it fills Eren with terror. He stumbles and almost falls again, but Levi dives out of the door, grabs Eren's hand, and yanks him towards the door, pushing himself further out into the room in the same moment.

He lands in the center of the nothingness just as the last floorboard disappears, but to Eren's surprise, a giant spider web materializes at that exact moment. Levi falls into the center of it and comes to an abrupt stop with a grunt of pain, some dozen or so feet below the little door.

"Levi!" Jean and Eren shout in unison. The Others cackle and leap into the web, nearly landing on Levi, who just barely escapes in time by climbing onto the outside of the web. Not wanting to give him away, Jean and Eren can do nothing but watch in terrified silence as he climbs up towards them. The door lies open and waiting behind them but thoughts of escape don't even cross their minds—they wouldn't leave without Levi.

But when Levi is forced to climb back to the inside of the web, his foot snags on it. He yanks it free and continues climbing but the vibrations travel down the web, all the way to where the Others are waiting. Their heads snap up and they look—as much as anyone _can_ look without eyes—right at Levi, cruel, sharp-toothed grins splitting their faces. They scurry up the web as deftly as the spiders which they look like, and Eren's heart stops for one terrifying moment before beating double time.

"Levi, look out!" he screams. Levi looks behind himself, and when he looks back his face is set into a snarl but his eyes are wide with terror.

"Go!" he calls up to them. "Get out of here!"

"None of you are leaving!" Other Jean growls. He reaches up towards Levi's foot and is almost close enough to grab him when all of a sudden Eren feels someone pull him roughly backwards. A second later, Jean drops out of nowhere, landing right on Other Jean and knocking him off the web and into Other Levi. The three of them go down in a mess of screaming and needle limbs.

"God fucking damn it, Jean!" Levi shouts angrily. He relinquishes his hold on the web and drops back down to help Jean, landing on Other Levi's back and causing him to screech in anger. Eren watches from the little door, frozen in horror, as Jean and Levi grapple with the Others. They're only narrowly dodging Other Jean and Other Levi's attempts to grab them, and only then it's because their flailing is violently shaking the web and knocking all four of them off balance.

Eren feels helpless. He wants nothing more than to go down there, grab his boyfriends, and drag them out of the web and back into their own world, but he knows he'd be useless in such tight quarters. But maybe there's something else he could do.

The green stone is still, somehow, in his pocket, and he nearly rips through the thin inner lining of his jacket in his haste to pull it out. He puts it up to one eye and closes the other.

The world turns grey, even that blank white nothingness that spreads below them like an endless sea of reflected light. Levi and Jean, now caught in the Others' sharp hands, are like squirming blobs of darkness. The Others, Eren is interested to see, are not. They're glowing bright white, with small, dark centers. As they move, a shimmering grey thread stretches between them, connecting their cores like some kind of leash. Eren watches them for a few moments, just to confirm his suspicions, and then he pulls the stone away from his eye, his heart beating wildly.

"Guys," he shouts, "you have to separate them!"

The Others look up at him and scream angrily, giving Levi a chance to wiggle out of their grip.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Jean shouts back.

"Physically separate them!" Eren yells.

" _Silence, wretched boy_!" the Others shout in unison. Levi clambers a few feet up the web and then jumps off, landing crouched on Other Jean's back and pulling him backwards by the head. Other Levi reaches for him, both of them screeching angrily, but Jean grabs onto the front of Other Levi's shirt and hooks his other arm around one of the thick strands of the web, holding him in place.

Eren dumps his bag at the entrance to the tunnel and clambers down the web to help. Other Jean is still bigger than Other Levi and is closer to breaking free of Levi's hold, so Eren goes to him and grabs Other Jean's free arm. His thin spider legs are flailing, seeking purchase on the thick, sticky web strands, but he's no match for Eren and Jean's more solid strength. He resorts to biting, his teeth sharp and thin, and chills roll down Eren's spine at how animal-like he's become.

"Guys, hurry up!" Jean says, his voice strained from the effort of holding Other Levi in place. With no direction to go but up, Eren and Levi take to climbing one-handed, dragging a struggling, shrieking Other Jean between them. Halfway up, Eren's arms are burning and his breath is coming in harsh pants. Levi looks as stoic as ever but his eyes, when Eren looks over at him, are dull with exhaustion. He wonders, briefly, just how long they were trapped in that room.

Just as he is about to reconsider his theory about the thread, Other Jean goes stiff, so suddenly that Eren flinches back from him in surprise. He refuses to budge when Eren tugs at him, and his heart jumps in his chest.

"Levi, pull him up more," Eren calls out. Levi nods, and together they heft Other Jean just a bit further, pulling and tugging on the elastic, invisible force pulling him back towards Other Levi. With one last grunt of effort, they yank him up. The thread snaps, inaudible but so obviously that Eren's breath catches in his throat. For a moment, the whole world—or what's left of it—is absolutely still.

And then, with the ear-splitting sound of shattering glass, a huge shockwave of _something_ explodes outwards, nearly knocking Eren and Levi off the web. Other Jean and Other Levi go limp right as the world begins to completely fall apart, webs and the living room and the white void cracking and shattering slowly but steadily. Eren drops Other Jean's arm in surprise and Other Jean is pulled by gravity out of Levi's grip. He falls all the way back down to the center of the web, narrowly missing Jean, who began climbing up the web when the world started to fall apart.

"Get to the door!" he shouts. Eren and Levi don't hesitate before turning around and scrambling up to the little door, hanging open tantalizingly and staying unscathed even as pieces of wall and ceiling fall down around their heads.

Eren reaches the door before Levi does and dives in headfirst, pushing his bag further in and making room for Levi to enter. They both turn and watch anxiously over their shoulders for Jean. He doesn't appear for many long, terrifying moments.

"Come on, come on," Eren mutters, eyes glued to the small opening. Levi's hand finds his in the semi-darkness and squeezes, hard, but Eren doesn't pull away.

Eventually—finally—Jean, his hair matted and bloody on one side and his shirt covered in dust, pulls himself up and into the tunnel. Eren releases a breath, so relieved that he's nearly weak from it. He reaches past Jean to pull the key from the lock and shut the door.

"I got hit in the fucking face with a piece of the wall," Jean grumbles, even as he reaches out and grabs at Levi's jacket. Levi grips him back just as hard, and Eren watches them with a heavy heart.

"We should go," he says, pulling his backpack back on. "The world is falling apart behind this door and I don't want to be here to find out what happens to the tunnel."

No sooner do the words leave his mouth than the tunnel gives a violent lurch, sending Levi and Jean sprawling. Eren braces himself as best as he can against the soft, rotten walls and looks around in alarm, as if he can see what's going on. The tunnel lurches again and then starts shaking, like an earthquake has hit whatever supports the tunnel, and Eren scrambles around and starts crawling towards the door that leads to his world.

"Come on!" he shouts over his shoulder. He doesn't look back again to see if they're keeping up or not, because if he trips and falls they're all done for. His heart pounding painfully in terror and his breath coming in harsh pants, he reaches the door and throws himself through it, landing on the hard floor with a pained grunt. Levi follows a moment later, and then Jean. The door jamb glows and flashes a sickly purple color and a horrible, much-too-human scream issues forth from the tunnel. Eren lurches forward and slams the door shut, then shoves the key into the lock and turns it.

Instantly, the screaming ceases and so does the flashing, and in the ensuing almost-silence, three people panting sounds incredibly loud. Jean shudders and then pulls himself quickly to his feet; he runs from the room, and a moment later the awful sound of retching comes from the bathroom. Feeling almost numb, Eren stands on shaky legs and follows him, feeling so weak with fear that he has to lean on the wall for support. By the time he makes it to the bathroom, the toilet has been flushed and Jean has curled up in the corner, his face buried in his arms and his whole frame wracked with shivers.

Eren drops to his knees wordlessly and pulls Jean into his chest, hiding his own face in Jean's shoulder. Levi joins them a moment later and collapses next to Jean with no comment about the questionable cleanliness of the bathroom floor, and for a moment the three of them simply hold each other and hide their tears in the act of comforting each other. Eren looks over at the doorway; it takes him a moment to realize that he's waiting for something dangerous to come through the door, and when it finally hits him that they're safe, the relief he feels is enough to make him go weak in Levi's arms.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, unsure if either of them hears him. He raises his voice slightly, but that just makes it sound a little hoarse. "I'm so sorry. This is all my fault." Levi stiffens a bit and then pulls back so he can look at Eren. His grey eyes are red-rimmed and narrowed in displeasure, and Eren thinks, _Here's where they leave me._

"Eren, stop," Levi says firmly, and Eren blinks back a fresh wave of tears

"But if I'd just listened to you and not gone through that stupid fucking door-"

"Eren," Jean snaps. He rubs his forehead back and forth against Eren's chest, seeking comfort, and his voice softens when he says, "You didn't know what was going to happen. You should have listened to us and you didn't, but it's not like you wanted this." He looks up then, his amber-gold eyes shining with nothing but sincerity. "You were just as much a victim as we were."

"Laying blame on you isn't going to help anyone," Levi says. "We're at fault, too. We didn't believe you when you told us about the door, and we're the idiots who accepted those fucking dolls that look exactly like us."

"Yeah, who does that?" Jean mumbles, and Eren lets out a weak, watery laugh.

"I love you both," he says, "so much."

"We know you do, Eren," Levi says. "That's why we know you'd never do anything to hurt us."

Eren feels a surge of guilt as he remembers the night he spent in The Others' bed, but because they can't afford to divide themselves right now, he stays silent.

* * *

It's still early evening, but none of them got much sleep over the past—god, has it really only been a day? Two? It feels like it's been at least a week since that fight that first drove them apart. Eren is tired like he's never been before, in a way that settles into his bones so that even when he's lying down everything aches. There's a pressure behind his eyes; he can't tell if it's because of his headache or because he wants to cry, but either way he takes two Tylenol and tries his best to ignore it.

Their shower isn't built for three people, or even two, so they take turns, hurrying so as not to use up all the hot water for whoever's next. Eren attends to Jean's bloody head while Levi showers; he wipes the blood away as gently as he can with a wet hand towel, wincing in sympathy when Jean flinches.

"It's not so bad," he says after a moment of studying the cut. It's deep and bleeding rather profusely, and the skin around it is bruised in a way that Eren knows will be vividly purple in a few hours. Jean glowers at him, seeing through the lie easily.

"I think there's a first aid kit under the sink," he says. Eren finds it and rummages through it to find what he'll need: an irrigating syringe, rubbing alcohol, and butterfly closures. He rinses out the cut with water and swipes an alcohol-soaked cotton ball across it to clean it, and then he pinches the edges of the cut together and uses the closures to hold it fast. He steps back to see his handiwork and nods, satisfied.

As he's putting the first aid kit away—all the rest of their injuries are bruises, which nothing in the kit can do anything about—Jean moves from the toilet seat to the rim of the bathtub.

"Hey, Eren," he says, so softly that Eren can barely hear him over the sound of the water streaming down from the showerhead. "Thank you."

Eren frowns at him. "For what?" he asks.

"For coming back to get us," Jean says. "Even though it was pretty obvious we were just bait for you."

With his shoulders hunched and his arms wrapped around his middle, Jean has never looked as young or as vulnerable as he does now, even when they were kids. His head is turned away, but Eren can see the way his lower lip is trembling. He crosses the bathroom and sits next to Jean, resting his head on his shoulder. Jean immediately turns and presses a kiss to the top of Eren's head.

"I don't want to cry again," he says firmly, his voice only slightly shaky.

"I won't judge you if you do," Eren says tiredly. "Levi won't, either. He's probably crying right now."

"Shut the fuck up, Eren," comes Levi's slightly muffled voice from the shower stall. Jeach cracks a small smile and hides it in Eren's hair.

* * *

Eren wants desperately to look down—to the side, at his hands, _away_ —but Levi's eyes are piercing; they hold his gaze unwaveringly. Jean would be able to break the tension if he were here, but he'd quietly insisted on sleeping in the guest room tonight, and they haven't seen him in a while.

The atmosphere in their room feels weighted, anticipatory. Eren doesn't know what Levi's waiting for, or what he's searching for in Eren's eyes, or why his lower lip is caught in between his teeth. He looks unsure of himself. It's an expression that Eren's never seen on his face before, and it's as out of place as Jean's vulnerability in the bathroom. _I did that to them,_ Eren thinks. _They're scared because of me._

As if he can sense Eren's thoughts, Levi reaches up and gently flicks him on the forehead, right between his eyes.

"Why did you put the ghost eyes under your pillow?" he asks softly.

"It seemed like the right thing to do," Eren whispers back. "Why is Jean in the guest room?"

Something flickers in Levi's eyes. "When they first caught us," he says slowly, "they separated us, and when he came back he wouldn't tell me what happened while he was gone." He closes his eyes and presses just a little closer to Eren. "But I think he'll be fine. He just needs some space right now."

"Yeah," Eren murmurs, pressing his face into Levi's chest. "What about you? How are you holding up?"

Levi's arms tighten almost imperceptibly around Eren. "I'll be fine," he says. "You? You were there a lot longer than we were."

"They were nice to me," Eren says, and doesn't voice the _at first_ that comes after that.

"Yeah, you told us about one of the dreams," Levi says. "Or what we _thought_ were dreams, anyway."

They're both quiet after that. Eren can't seem to fall asleep but he can't find the words to break the silence, but after a while he becomes sure that Levi's asleep, so it doesn't matter much anyway. He closes his eyes and pulls the blanket higher around his shoulders, trying to ward off the phantom feeling of sewing needles against his skin. It's no use; all he sees when he closes his eyes are the Others, growing and _morphing_ into those hideous skeletal monsters. He sighs in frustration and opens his eyes. His heart nearly seizes in his chest when he sees four pale, glowing, ghostly forms hovering in the corner of the bedroom.

He carefully sits up and, when Levi doesn't so much as twitch, gets out of bed. The hardwood is cold against his bare feet, but he pays it no mind as he walks up to the ghosts. Coraline floats up to meet him, her mouth stretched in a sad smile. The ghosts are glowing gold now, instead of blue-white, and they look more alive than they did in the Other world.

"You did it," Coraline whispers reverently. "You saved us!"

"I guess I did," Eren says. "I'm just glad it's all over." The ghosts' glow seems to grow a little brighter at that, and they exchanged smiles.

"It is," Coraline agrees. "You killed the Beldam and saved everyone else who'll live in this house after you."

"We thank you kindly, good sir," says another of the ghosts, a tall girl with a long, shapeless dress on. "You've done the world a great service."

"What's going to happen to you now?" he asks.

"Now we move on," Coraline says. "To whatever comes after this."

The other girl, who seems to have the hazy silver outline of butterfly wings protruding from her back, beams at him.

"And we'll never forget you," she says. "Now rest. You've earned it."

Something scratches at the window, drawing Eren's attention, and when he looks back at the corner, the ghosts are gone. He goes to the window and pulls aside the curtains. The cats blink up at him and sit with their heads held high, waiting for him to let them in. Eren looks back at Levi's slumbering form, then mentally shrugs and opens the window.

"Thank you for your help," Eren says as the cats pad elegantly into the room. "I couldn't have done it without you."

The yellow tomcat purrs as Eren gently runs a finger up the bridge of his nose and between his eyes. The other two brush against his legs as they walk over to the bed, leaping up and settling down in a little pile of fur near the footboard. The tomcat joins them, and Eren crawls back into bed with the reminder not to kick them off accidentally.

He falls asleep easily after that, and the rest of his night is dreamless and peaceful.

* * *

"Eren, could you go get the door?" Jean asks without looking away from the pitcher of lemonade he's stirring. Behind him, Levi pulls out a bottle of vodka to spike the lemonade with, motioning for Eren to keep it a secret from Jean. Smiling, Eren saves the document he was working on and closes his laptop, then goes to open the front door. The cats follow behind him so they can streak out as soon as the door's open, and Mikasa looks down at them with a raised eyebrow.

"You seem to have a pest problem," she says. Eren laughs lightly.

"Oh, they're pests all right," he says. "But we still take care of them."

He leads her into the kitchen, where she greets Jean and Levi with a small smile. "You three never struck me as cat people," she says.

"We're not," Levi grumbles. Jean hands him the pitcher of lemonade to put with the others, and Levi opens the vodka and pours a generous amount in while Jean's back is turned. "But we owe them, so."

"We had a bit of a rat problem that they helped us solve," Jean explains. "And anyway, they're sweet. At least this way they don't fight with the dogs from downstairs."

"Guys, are you ready to go?" Eren asks. "You know how Sasha and Connie get when we keep them waiting for food for too long."

"Connie and Sasha can make their own food," Jean mutters, but he grabs the two trays of brownies from the counter and starts for the door anyway. "Chop chop, guys. We can't be late for our own thing, especially not after fighting so hard to convince everyone that we _could_ host it this time."

Rolling his eyes, Eren lifts the pitcher of lemonade in one hand and follows Jean, with the other two coming behind him. They walk down the porch stairs and head for the long tables that are set up in the garden. It's a little early, so none of the other neighbors have arrived yet. After setting his pitcher down, Eren turns and surveys the garden with a small smile on his face.

Most of the plants are still dead and the pond is still empty, but once the landscapers get here that hopefully won't be a problem. The breeze is crisp and cool and the sky is almost completely covered with clouds, but Eren wouldn't have it any other way.

"Eren, come here for a second," Levi calls. Eren's hand reaches up to squeeze the ugly brass key he wears on a chain around his neck, and he takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Three pairs of eyes blink slowly at him from a dead tree near the outskirts of the garden. Eren blinks back at them, and then he tucks the key underneath his shirt and goes to help his family.

* * *

 **That's the end of this story, my lovelies! I hope you enjoyed it, and if you did (or even if you didn't), don't be afraid to drop a comment. I read every single one and I love and appreciate them all, even if I can't directly respond to them :)**

 **My next big story will probably be something Supernatural, like a sequel to the Frozen AU or another of my Disney AUs. I haven't decided on what, exactly, I want to write next, so if you have any requests, leave a comment or shoot me a PM. Also check out my tumblr, gabrielthetricksterarchangel.**


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